Bible in 90 Days

²⁹ These are the names of the men I have appointed to oversee the dividing of the land among the tribes.”

35 While Israel was camped beside the Jordan on the plains of Moab, opposite Jericho, the Lord said to Moses,

² “Instruct the people of Israel to give to the Levites as their inheritance certain cities and surrounding pasturelands. ³ These cities are for their homes, and the surrounding lands for their cattle, flocks, and other livestock. ^4-5 Their gardens and vineyards shall extend 1500 feet out from the city walls in each direction, with an additional 1500 feet beyond that for pastureland.

⁶ “You shall give the Levites the six Cities of Refuge, where a person who has accidentally killed someone can run and be safe, and forty-two other cities besides. ⁷ In all, there shall be forty-eight cities with the surrounding pastureland given to the Levites. ⁸ These cities shall be in various parts of the nation; the larger tribes with many cities will give several to the Levites, while the smaller tribes will give fewer.”

^9-10 And the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the people that when they arrive in the land, ¹¹ Cities of Refuge shall be designated for anyone to flee into if he has killed someone accidentally. ¹² These cities will be places of protection from the dead man’s relatives who want to avenge his death; for the slayer must not be killed unless a fair trial establishes his guilt. ^13-14 Three of these six Cities of Refuge are to be located in the land of Canaan, and three on the east side of the Jordan River. ¹⁵ These are not only for the protection of Israelites, but also for foreigners and travelers.

¹⁶ “But if someone is struck and killed by a piece of iron, it must be presumed to be murder, and the murderer must be executed. ¹⁷ Or if the slain man was struck down with a large stone, it is murder, and the murderer shall die. ¹⁸ The same is true if he is killed with a wooden weapon. ¹⁹ The avenger of his death shall personally kill the murderer when he meets him. ²⁰ So if anyone kills another out of hatred by throwing something at him, or ambushing him, ²¹ or angrily striking him with his fist so that he dies, he is a murderer; and the murderer shall be executed by the avenger.

^22-23 “But if it is an accident—a case in which something is thrown unintentionally, or in which a stone is thrown without anger, without realizing it will hit anyone, and without wanting to harm an enemy—yet the man dies, ²⁴ then the people shall judge whether or not it was an accident, and whether or not to hand the killer over to the avenger of the dead man. ²⁵ If it is decided that it was accidental, then the people shall save the killer from the avenger; the killer shall be permitted to stay in the City of Refuge; and he must live there until the death of the High Priest.

²⁶ “If the slayer leaves the city, ²⁷ and the avenger finds him outside and kills him, it is not murder, ²⁸ for the man should have stayed inside the city until the death of the High Priest. But after the death of the High Priest, the man may return to his own land and home. ²⁹ These are permanent laws for all Israel from generation to generation.

³⁰ “All murderers must be executed, but only if there is more than one witness; no man shall die with only one person testifying against him. ³¹ Whenever anyone is judged guilty of murder, he must die—no ransom may be accepted for him. ³² Nor may a payment be accepted from a refugee in a City of Refuge, permitting him to return to his home before the death of the High Priest. ³³ In this way the land will not be polluted, for murder pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for murder except by the execution of the murderer. ³⁴ You shall not defile the land where you are going to live, for I, Jehovah, will be living there.”

36 ^1-2 Then the heads of the subclan of Gilead (of the clan of Machir, of the tribe of Manasseh, one of the sons of Joseph) came to Moses and the leaders of Israel with a petition: “The Lord instructed you to divide the land by lot among the people of Israel,” they reminded Moses, “and to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. ³ But if they marry into another tribe, their land will go with them to the tribe into which they marry. In this way the total area of our tribe will be reduced ⁴ and will not be returned at the Year of Jubilee.”

⁵ Then Moses replied publicly, giving them these instructions from the Lord: “The men of the tribe of Joseph have a proper complaint. ⁶ This is what the Lord has further commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them be married to anyone they like, so long as it is within their own tribe. ⁷ In this way none of the land of the tribe will shift to any other tribe, for the inheritance of every tribe is to remain permanently as it was first allotted. ⁸ The girls throughout the tribes of Israel who are heiresses must marry within their own tribe, so that their land won’t leave the tribe. ⁹ In this way no inheritance shall move from one tribe to another.’”

¹⁰ The daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded Moses. ^11-12 These girls, Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, were married to men in their own tribe of Manasseh (son of Joseph); so their inheritance remained in their tribe.

¹³ These are the commandments and ordinances that the Lord gave to the people of Israel through Moses, while they were camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.

1 ^1-5 This book records Moses’ address to the people of Israel when they were camped in the valley of the Arabah in the wilderness of Moab, east of the Jordan River. (Cities in the area included Suph, Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.) The speech was given on February 15,^[e] forty years after the people of Israel left Mount Horeb—though it takes only eleven days to travel by foot from Mount Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, going by way of Mount Seir! At the time of this address, King Sihon of the Amorites had already been defeated at Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan had been defeated at Ashtaroth, near Edrei. Here, then, is Moses’ address to Israel, stating all the laws God had commanded him to pass on to them:

⁶ “It was forty years ago, at Mount Horeb, that Jehovah our God told us, ‘You have stayed here long enough. ⁷ Now go and occupy the hill country of the Amorites, the valley of the Arabah, and the Negeb, and all the land of Canaan and Lebanon—the entire area from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River. ⁸ I am giving all of it to you! Go in and possess it, for it is the land the Lord promised to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all of their descendants.’

⁹ “At that time I told the people, ‘I need help! You are a great burden for me to carry all by myself, ¹⁰ for the Lord has multiplied you to become as many as the stars! ¹¹ And may he multiply you a thousand times more and bless you as he promised, ¹² but what can one man do to settle all your quarrels and problems? ¹³ So choose some men from each tribe who are wise, experienced, and understanding, and I will appoint them as your leaders.’

¹⁴ “They agreed to this; ¹⁵ I took the men they selected, some from every tribe, and appointed them as administrative assistants in charge of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens to decide their quarrels and assist them in every way. ¹⁶ I instructed them to be perfectly fair at all times, even to foreigners. ¹⁷ ‘When giving your decisions,’ I told them, ‘never favor a man because he is rich; be fair to great and small alike. Don’t fear their displeasure, for you are judging in the place of God. Bring me any cases too difficult for you, and I will handle them.’ ¹⁸ And I gave them other instructions at that time also.

^19-21 “Then we left Mount Horeb and traveled through the great and terrible desert, finally arriving among the Amorite hills to which the Lord our God had directed us. We were then at Kadesh-barnea on the border of the Promised Land^[f] and I said to the people, ‘The Lord God has given us this land. Go and possess it as he told us to. Don’t be afraid! Don’t even doubt!’

²² “But they replied, ‘First let’s send out spies to discover the best route of entry, and to decide which cities we should capture first.’

²³ “This seemed like a good idea, so I chose twelve spies, one from each tribe. ^24-25 They crossed into the hills and came to the valley of Eshcol, and returned with samples of the local fruit. One look was enough to convince us that it was indeed a good land the Lord our God had given us. ²⁶ But the people refused to go in and rebelled against the Lord’s command.

²⁷ “They murmured and complained in their tents and said, ‘The Lord must hate us, bringing us here from Egypt to be slaughtered by these Amorites. ²⁸ What are we getting into? Our brothers who spied out the land have frightened us with their report. They say that the people of the land are tall and powerful, and that the walls of their cities rise high into the sky! They have even seen giants there—the descendants of the Anakim!’

²⁹ “But I said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid! ³⁰ The Lord God is your leader, and he will fight for you with his mighty miracles, just as you saw him do in Egypt. ³¹ And you know how he has cared for you again and again here in the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child!’ ³² But nothing I said did any good.

“They refused to believe the Lord our God ³³ who had led them all the way, and had selected the best places for them to camp, and had guided them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day.

^34-35 “Well, the Lord heard their complaining and was very angry. He vowed that not one person in that entire generation would live to see the good land he had promised their fathers, ³⁶ except Caleb (the son of Jephunneh), who, because he had wholly followed the Lord, would receive as his personal inheritance some of the land he had walked over.

³⁷ “And the Lord was even angry with me because of them and said to me, ‘You shall not enter the Promised Land! ³⁸ Instead, your assistant, Joshua (the son of Nun), shall lead the people. Encourage him as he prepares to take over the leadership. ³⁹ I will give the land to the children they said would die in the wilderness. ⁴⁰ But as for you of the older generation, turn around now and go on back across the desert toward the Red Sea.’

⁴¹ “Then they confessed, ‘We have sinned! We will go into the land and fight for it as the Lord our God has told us to.’ So they strapped on their weapons and thought it would be easy to conquer the whole area.

⁴² “But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them not to do it, for I will not go with them; they will be struck down before their enemies.’

⁴³ “I told them, but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, they rebelled again against the Lord’s commandment and went on up into the hill country to fight. ⁴⁴ But the Amorites who lived there came out against them and chased them like bees and killed them from Seir to Hormah. ⁴⁵ Then they returned and wept before the Lord, but he wouldn’t listen. ⁴⁶ So they stayed there at Kadesh for a long time.

2 “Then we turned back across the wilderness toward the Red Sea, for so the Lord had instructed me. For many years we wandered around in the area of Mount Seir. ² Then at last the Lord said, ³ ‘You have stayed here long enough. Turn northward. ⁴ Inform the people that they will be passing through the country belonging to their brothers the Edomites, the descendants of Esau who live in Seir; the Edomites will be nervous, so be careful. ⁵ Don’t start a fight! For I have given them all the Mount Seir hill country as their permanent possession, and I will not give you even a tiny piece of their land. ⁶ Pay them for whatever food or water you use. ⁷ The Lord your God has watched over you and blessed you every step of the way for all these forty years as you have wandered around in this great wilderness; and you have lacked nothing in all that time.’

⁸ “So we passed through Edom where our brothers lived, crossing the Arabah Road that goes south to Elath and Ezion-geber, and traveling northward toward the wilderness of Moab.

⁹ “Then the Lord warned us, ‘Don’t attack the Moabites either, for I will not give you any of their land; I have given it to the descendants of Lot.’

¹⁰ “(The Emim used to live in that area, a very large tribe, tall as the giants of Anakim; ¹¹ both the Emim and the Anakim are often referred to as the Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim. ¹² In earlier days the Horites lived in Seir, but they were driven out and displaced by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, just as Israel would displace the peoples of Canaan, whose land had been assigned to Israel by the Lord.)

¹³ “‘Now cross Zered Brook,’ the Lord said; and we did.

^14-15 “So it took us thirty-eight years to finally get across Zered Brook from Kadesh! For the Lord had decreed that this could not happen until all the men, who thirty-eight years earlier were old enough to bear arms, had died. Yes, the hand of the Lord was against them until finally all were dead.

^16-17 “Then at last the Lord said to me, ¹⁸ ‘Today Israel shall cross the borders of Moab at Ar, ¹⁹ into the land of the Ammonites. But do not attack them, for I will not give you any of their land. I have given it to the descendants of Lot.’

²⁰ “(That area, too, used to be inhabited by the Rephaim, called ‘Zamzummim’ by the Ammonites. ²¹ They were a large and powerful tribe, as tall as the Anakim; but Jehovah destroyed them as the Ammonites came in, and the Ammonites lived there in their place. ²² The Lord had similarly helped the descendants of Esau at Mount Seir, for he destroyed the Horites who were living there before them. ²³ Another similar situation occurred when the people of Caphtor invaded and destroyed the tribe of Avvim living in villages scattered across the countryside as far away as Gaza.)

²⁴ “Then the Lord said, ‘Cross the Arnon River into the land of King Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon. War against him and begin to take possession of his land. ²⁵ Beginning today I will make people throughout the whole earth tremble with fear because of you, and dread your arrival.’

²⁶ “Then from the wilderness of Kedemoth I sent ambassadors to King Sihon of Heshbon with a proposal of peace. ²⁷ ‘Let us pass through your land,’ we said. ‘We will stay on the main road and won’t turn off into the fields on either side. ²⁸ We will not steal food as we go, but will purchase every bite we eat and everything we drink; all we want is permission to pass through. ²⁹ The Edomites at Seir allowed us to go through their country, and so did the Moabites, whose capital is at Ar. We are on our way across the Jordan into the land the Lord our God has given us.’

³⁰ “But King Sihon refused because Jehovah your God made him obstinate, so that he could destroy Sihon by the hands of Israel, as has now been done.

³¹ “Then the Lord said to me, ‘I have begun to give you the land of King Sihon; when you possess it, it shall belong to Israel forever.’

³² “King Sihon then declared war on us and mobilized his forces at Jahaz. ^33-34 But the Lord our God crushed him, and we conquered all his cities and utterly destroyed everything, including the women and babies. We left nothing alive ^35-36 except the cattle, which we took as our reward, along with the booty gained from ransacking the cities we had taken. We conquered everything from Aroer to Gilead—from the edge of the Arnon River Valley, and including all the cities in the valley. Not one city was too strong for us, for the Lord our God gave all of them to us. ³⁷ However, we stayed away from the people of Ammon and from the Jabbok River and the hill country cities, the places Jehovah our God had forbidden us to enter.

3 ^1-2 “Next we turned toward King Og’s land of Bashan. He immediately mobilized his army and attacked us at Edrei. But the Lord told me not to be afraid of him. ‘All his people and his land are yours,’ the Lord told me. ‘You will do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites at Heshbon.’ ³ So the Lord helped us fight against King Og and his people, and we killed them all. ⁴ We conquered all sixty of his cities, the entire Argob region of Bashan. ⁵ These were well-fortified cities with high walls and barred gates. Of course we also took all of the unwalled towns. ⁶ We utterly destroyed the kingdom of Bashan just as we had destroyed King Sihon’s kingdom at Heshbon, killing the entire population—men, women, and children alike. ⁷ But we kept the cattle and loot for ourselves.

⁸ “We now possessed all the land of the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan River—all the land from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon. ⁹ (The Sidonians called Mount Hermon ‘Sirion,’ while the Amorites called it ‘Senir.’) ¹⁰ We had now conquered all the cities on the plateau, and all of Gilead and Bashan as far as the cities of Salecah and Edrei.

¹¹ “Incidentally, King Og of Bashan was the last of the giant Rephaim. His iron bedstead is kept in a museum at Rabbah, one of the cities of the Ammonites, and measures thirteen and a half feet long by six feet wide.

¹² “At that time I gave the conquered land to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. To the tribes of Reuben and Gad I gave the area beginning at Aroer on the Arnon River, plus half of Mount Gilead, including its cities. ¹³ The half-tribe of Manasseh received the remainder of Gilead and all of the former kingdom of King Og, the Argob region. (Bashan is sometimes called ‘The Land of the Rephaim.’) ¹⁴ The clan of Jair, of the tribe of Manasseh, took over the whole Argob region (Bashan) to the borders of the Geshurites and Maacathites. They renamed their country after themselves, calling it Havvoth-jair (meaning ‘Jair’s Villages’) as it is still known today. ¹⁵ Then I gave Gilead to the clan of Machir. ¹⁶ The tribes of Reuben and Gad received the area extending from the Jabbok River in Gilead (which was the Ammonite frontier) to the middle of the valley of the Arnon River. ¹⁷ They also received the Arabah (or wasteland), bounded by the Jordan River on the west, from Chinnereth to Mount Pisgah and the Dead Sea (also called the Sea of the Arabah).

¹⁸ “At that time I reminded the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh that, although the Lord had given them the land, they could not begin settling down until their armed men led the other tribes across the Jordan to the land the Lord was giving them.

¹⁹ “‘But your wives and children,’ I told them, ‘may live here in the cities the Lord has given you, caring for your many cattle ²⁰ until you return after the Lord has given victory to the other tribes too. When they conquer the land the Lord your God has given them across the Jordan River, then you may return here to your own land.’

²¹ “Then I said to Joshua, ‘You have seen what the Lord your God has done to those two kings. You will do the same to all the kingdoms on the other side of the Jordan. ²² Don’t be afraid of the nations there, for the Lord your God will fight for you.’

^23-25 “At that time I made this plea to God: ‘O Lord God, please let me cross over into the Promised Land—the good land beyond the Jordan River with its rolling hills—and Lebanon. I want to see the result of all the greatness and power you have been showing us; for what God in all of heaven or earth can do what you have done for us?’

²⁶ “But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not let me cross over. ‘Speak of it no more,’ he ordered, ²⁷ ‘but go to the top of Mount Pisgah where you can look out in every direction, and there you will see the land in the distance. But you shall not cross the Jordan River. ²⁸ Commission Joshua to replace you, and then encourage him, for he shall lead the people across to conquer the land you will see from the mountaintop.’

²⁹ “So we remained in the valley near Beth-peor.

4 “And now, O Israel, listen carefully to these laws I teach you, and obey them if you want to live and enter into and possess the land given you by the Lord God of your ancestors. ² Do not add other laws or subtract from these; just obey them, for they are from the Lord your God. ³ You have seen what the Lord did to you at Baalpeor, where he destroyed many people for worshiping idols. ⁴ But all of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today.

⁵ “These are the laws for you to obey when you arrive in the land where you will live. They are from the Lord our God. He has given them to me to pass on to you. ⁶ If you obey them, they will give you a reputation for wisdom and intelligence. When the surrounding nations hear these laws, they will exclaim, ‘What other nation is as wise and prudent as Israel!’ ⁷ For what other nation, great or small, has God among them, as the Lord our God is here among us whenever we call upon him? ⁸ And what nation, no matter how great, has laws as fair as these I am giving you today?

⁹ “But watch out! Be very careful never to forget what you have seen God doing for you. May his miracles have a deep and permanent effect upon your lives! Tell your children and your grandchildren about the glorious miracles he did. ¹⁰ Tell them especially about the day you stood before the Lord at Mount Horeb, and he told me, ‘Summon the people before me and I will instruct them, so that they will learn always to reverence me, and so that they can teach my laws to their children.’ ¹¹ You stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; flames shot far into the sky, surrounded by black clouds and deep darkness. ¹² And the Lord spoke to you from the fire; you heard his words but didn’t see him. ¹³ He proclaimed the laws you must obey—the Ten Commandments—and wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴ Yes, it was at that time that the Lord commanded me to issue the laws you must obey when you arrive in the Promised Land.

¹⁵ “But beware! You didn’t see the form of God that day as he spoke to you from the fire at Mount Horeb, ^16-17 so do not defile yourselves by trying to make a statue of God—an idol in any form, whether of a man, woman, animal, bird, ¹⁸ a small animal that runs along the ground, or a fish. ¹⁹ And do not look up into the sky to worship the sun, moon, or stars. The Lord may permit other nations to get away with this, but not you. ²⁰ The Lord has rescued you from prison—Egypt—to be his special people, his own inheritance; this is what you are today. ^21-22 But he was angry with me because of you; he vowed that I could not go over the Jordan River into the good land he has given you as your inheritance. I must die here on this side of the river. ²³ Beware lest you break the contract the Lord your God has made with you! You will break it if you make any idols, for the Lord your God has utterly forbidden this. ²⁴ He is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

²⁵ “In the future, when your children and grandchildren are born and you have been in the land a long time, and you have defiled yourselves by making idols, and the Lord your God is very angry because of your sin, ²⁶ heaven and earth are witnesses that you shall be quickly destroyed from the land. Soon now you will cross the Jordan River and conquer that land. But your days there will be brief; you will then be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ For the Lord will scatter you among the nations, and you will be but few in number. ²⁸ There, far away, you will worship idols made from wood and stone, idols that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

²⁹ “But you will also begin to search again for Jehovah your God, and you will find him when you search for him with all your heart and soul. ³⁰ When those bitter days have come upon you in the latter times, you will finally return to the Lord your God and listen to what he tells you. ³¹ For the Lord your God is merciful—he will not abandon you nor destroy you nor forget the promises he has made to your ancestors.

³² “In all history, going back to the time when God created man upon the earth, search from one end of the heavens to the other to see if you can find anything like this: ³³ An entire nation heard the voice of God speaking to it from fire, as you did, and lived! ³⁴ Where else will you ever find another example of God’s removing a nation from its slavery by sending terrible plagues, mighty miracles, war, and terror? Yet that is what the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, right before your very eyes. ³⁵ He did these things so you would realize that Jehovah is God, and that there is no one else like him. ³⁶ He let you hear his voice instructing you from heaven, and he let you see his great pillar of fire upon the earth; you even heard his words from the center of the fire.

³⁷ “It was because he loved your ancestors and chose to bless their descendants that he personally brought you out from Egypt with a great display of power. ³⁸ He drove away other nations greater by far than you and gave you their land as an inheritance, as it is today. ³⁹ This is your wonderful thought for the day: Jehovah is God both in heaven and down here upon the earth; and there is no God other than him! ⁴⁰ You must obey these laws that I will tell you today, so that all will be well with you and your children, and so that you will live forever in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

⁴¹ Then Moses instructed the people of Israel to set apart three cities east of the Jordan River, ⁴² where anyone who accidentally killed someone could flee for safety. ⁴³ These cities were Bezer, on the plateau in the wilderness, for the tribe of Reuben; Ramoth, in Gilead, for the tribe of Gad; and Golan, in Bashan, for the tribe of Manasseh.

^44-46 Listed below are the laws Moses issued to the people of Israel when they left Egypt, and as they were camped east of the Jordan River near the city of Beth-peor. (This was the land formerly occupied by the Amorites under King Sihon, whose capital was Heshbon; he and his people were destroyed by Moses and the Israelis. ⁴⁷ Israel conquered his land and that of King Og of Bashan—they were two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. ⁴⁸ Israel also conquered all the area from Aroer at the edge of the Arnon River Valley to Mount Sirion, or Mount Hermon, as it is sometimes called; ⁴⁹ and all the Arabah east of the Jordan River over to the Dead Sea, below the slopes of Mount Pisgah.)

5 Moses continued speaking to the people of Israel and said, “Listen carefully now to all these laws God has given you; learn them, and be sure to obey them!

^2-3 “The Lord our God made a contract with you at Mount Horeb—not with your ancestors, but with you who are here alive today. ⁴ He spoke with you face to face from the center of the fire, there at the mountain. ⁵ I stood as an intermediary between you and Jehovah, for you were afraid of the fire and did not go up to him on the mountain. He spoke to me and I passed on his laws to you. This is what he said:

⁶ “‘I am Jehovah your God who rescued you from slavery in Egypt.

⁷ “‘Never worship any god but me.

⁸ “‘Never make idols; don’t worship images, whether of birds, animals, or fish. ^9-10 You shall not bow down to any images nor worship them in any way, for I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God, and I will bring the curse of a father’s sins upon even the third and fourth generation of the children of those who hate me; but I will show kindness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

¹¹ “‘You must never use my name to make a vow you don’t intend to keep.^[g] I will not overlook that.

¹² “‘Keep the Sabbath day holy. This is my command. ¹³ Work the other six days, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; no work shall be done that day by you or by any of your household—your sons, daughters, servants, oxen, donkeys, or cattle; even foreigners living among you must obey this law. Everybody must rest as you do. ¹⁵ Why should you keep the Sabbath? It is because you were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out with a great display of miracles.

¹⁶ “‘Honor your father and mother (remember, this is a commandment of the Lord your God); if you do so, you shall have a long, prosperous life in the land he is giving you.

¹⁷ “‘You must not murder.

¹⁸ “‘You must not commit adultery.

¹⁹ “‘You must not steal.

²⁰ “‘You must not tell lies.

²¹ “‘You must not burn with desire for another man’s wife, nor envy him for his home, land, servants, oxen, donkeys, nor anything else he owns.’

²² “The Lord has given these laws to each one of you from the heart of the fire, surrounded by the clouds and thick darkness that engulfed Mount Sinai. Those were the only commandments he gave you at that time,^[h] and he wrote them out on two stone tablets and gave them to me. ²³ But when you heard the loud voice from the darkness and saw the terrible fire at the top of the mountain, all your tribal leaders came to me ²⁴ and pleaded, ‘Today the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness; we have even heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Now we know that a man may speak to God and not die; ²⁵ but we will surely die if he speaks to us again. This awesome fire will consume us. ^26-27 What man can hear, as we have, the voice of the living God speaking from the heart of the fire, and live? You go and listen to all that God says, then come and tell us, and we will listen and obey.’

²⁸ “And the Lord agreed to your request and said to me, ‘I have heard what the people have said to you, and I agree. ²⁹ Oh, that they would always have such a heart for me, wanting to obey my commandments. Then all would go well with them in the future, and with their children throughout all generations! ³⁰ Go and tell them to return to their tents. ³¹ Then you come back and stand here beside me, and I will give you all my commandments, and you shall teach them to the people; and they will obey them in the land I am giving to them.’”

³² So Moses told the people, “You must obey all the commandments of the Lord your God, following his directions in every detail, going the whole way he has laid out for you; ³³ only then will you live long and prosperous lives in the land you are to enter and possess.

6 “The Lord your God told me to give you all these commandments which you are to obey in the land you will soon be entering, where you will live. ² The purpose of these laws is to cause you, your sons, and your grandsons to reverence the Lord your God by obeying all of his instructions as long as you live; if you do, you will have long, prosperous years ahead of you. ³ Therefore, O Israel, listen closely to each command and be careful to obey it, so that all will go well with you, and so that you will have many children. If you obey these commands, you will become a great nation in a glorious land ‘flowing with milk and honey,’ even as the God of your fathers promised you.

⁴ “O Israel, listen: Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone. ⁵ You must love him with all your heart, soul, and might. ⁶ And you must think constantly about these commandments I am giving you today. ⁷ You must teach them to your children and talk about them when you are at home or out for a walk; at bedtime and the first thing in the morning. ⁸ Tie them on your finger, wear them on your forehead, ⁹ and write them on the doorposts of your house!

^10-12 “When the Lord your God has brought you into the land he promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and when he has given you great cities full of good things—cities you didn’t build, wells you didn’t dig, and vineyards and olive trees you didn’t plant—and when you have eaten until you can hold no more, then beware lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the land of slavery. ¹³ When you are full, don’t forget to be reverent to him and to serve him and to use his name alone to endorse your promises.

¹⁴ “You must not worship the gods of the neighboring nations, ¹⁵ for Jehovah your God who lives among you is a jealous God, and his anger may rise quickly against you, and wipe you off the face of the earth. ¹⁶ You must not provoke him and try his patience as you did when you complained against him at Massah. ¹⁷ You must actively obey him in everything he commands. ¹⁸ Only then will you be doing what is right and good in the Lord’s eyes. If you obey him, all will go well for you, and you will be able to go in and possess the good land that the Lord promised your ancestors. ¹⁹ You will also be able to throw out all the enemies living in your land, as the Lord agreed to help you do.

²⁰ “In the years to come when your son asks you, ‘What is the purpose of these laws which the Lord our God has given us?’ ²¹ you must tell him, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with great power ²² and mighty miracles—with terrible blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people. We saw it all with our own eyes. ²³ He brought us out of Egypt so that he could give us this land he had promised to our ancestors. ²⁴ And he has commanded us to obey all of these laws and to reverence him so that he can preserve us alive as he has until now. ²⁵ For it always goes well with us when we obey all the laws of the Lord our God.’

7 “When the Lord brings you into the Promised Land, as he soon will, he will destroy the following seven nations, all greater and mightier than you are: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites.

² “When the Lord your God delivers them over to you to be destroyed, do a complete job of it—don’t make any treaties or show them mercy; utterly wipe them out. ³ Do not intermarry with them, nor let your sons and daughters marry their sons and daughters. ⁴ That would surely result in your young people’s beginning to worship their gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be hot against you, and he would surely destroy you.

⁵ “You must break down the heathen altars and shatter the obelisks and cut up the shameful images and burn the idols.

⁶ “For you are a holy people, dedicated to the Lord your God. He has chosen you from all the people on the face of the whole earth to be his own chosen ones. ⁷ He didn’t choose you and pour out his love upon you because you were a larger nation than any other, for you were the smallest of all! ⁸ It was just because he loves you, and because he kept his promise to your ancestors. That is why he brought you out of slavery in Egypt with such amazing power and mighty miracles.

⁹ “Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is the faithful God who for a thousand generations keeps his promises and constantly loves those who love him and who obey his commands. ¹⁰ But those who hate him shall be punished publicly and destroyed. He will deal with them personally. ¹¹ Therefore, obey all these commandments I am giving you today. ¹² Because of your obedience, the Lord your God will keep his part of the contract which, in his tender love, he made with your fathers. ¹³ And he will love you and bless you and make you into a great nation. He will make you fertile and give fertility to your ground and to your animals, so that you will have large crops of grain, grapes, and olives, and great flocks of cattle, sheep, and goats when you arrive in the land he promised your fathers to give you. ¹⁴ You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth; not one of you, whether male or female, shall be barren, not even your cattle. ¹⁵ And the Lord will take away all your sickness and will not let you suffer any of the diseases of Egypt you remember so well; he will give them all to your enemies!

¹⁶ “You must destroy all the nations the Lord your God delivers into your hands. Have no pity, and do not worship their gods; if you do, it will be a sad day for you. ¹⁷ Perhaps you will think to yourself, ‘How can we ever conquer these nations that are so much more powerful than we are?’ ¹⁸ But don’t be afraid of them! Just remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all the land of Egypt. ¹⁹ Do you remember the terrors the Lord sent upon them—your parents saw it with their own eyes—and the mighty miracles and wonders, and the power and strength of Almighty God that he used to bring you out of Egypt? Well, the Lord your God will use this same might against the people you fear. ²⁰ Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets to drive out those who hide from you!

²¹ “No, do not be afraid of those nations, for the Lord your God is among you, and he is a great and awesome God. ²² He will cast them out a little at a time; he will not do it all at once, for if he did, the wild animals would multiply too quickly and become dangerous. ²³ He will do it gradually, and you will move in against those nations and destroy them. ²⁴ He will deliver their kings into your hands, and you will erase their names from the face of the earth. No one will be able to stand against you.

²⁵ “Burn their idols and do not touch the silver or gold they are made of. Do not take it or it will be a snare to you, for it is horrible to the Lord your God. ²⁶ Do not bring an idol into your home and worship it, for then your doom is sealed. Utterly detest it, for it is a cursed thing.