Deuteronomy 29-31

Deuteronomy 29

¹These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.

²Moses called to all Israel, and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land;

³the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.

⁴But the LORD has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.

⁵I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not grown old on you, and your sandals have not grown old on your feet.

⁶You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the LORD your God.

⁷When you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we struck them.

⁸We took their land, and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of the Manassites.

⁹Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.

¹⁰All of you stand today in the presence of the LORD your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel,

¹¹your little ones, your wives, and the foreigners who are in the middle of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water,

¹²that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you today,

¹³that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he spoke to you and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

¹⁴Neither do I make this covenant and this oath with you only,

¹⁵but with those who stand here with us today before the LORD our God, and also with those who are not here with us today

¹⁶(for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the middle of the nations through which you passed;

¹⁷and you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them);

¹⁸lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that produces bitter poison;

¹⁹and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry.

²⁰The LORD will not pardon him, but then the LORD’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under the sky.

²¹The LORD will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

²²The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick,

²³that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

²⁴Even all the nations will say, “Why has the LORD done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?”

²⁵Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt,

²⁶and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them.

²⁷Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book.

²⁸The LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

²⁹The secret things belong to the LORD our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 30

¹It shall happen, when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you,

²and return to the LORD your God and obey his voice according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul,

³that then the LORD your God will release you from captivity, have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.

⁴If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back.

⁵The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you will possess it. He will do you good, and increase your numbers more than your fathers.

⁶The LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

⁷The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you.

⁸You shall return and obey the LORD’s voice, and do all his commandments which I command you today.

⁹The LORD your God will make you prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, for good; for the LORD will again rejoice over you for good, as he rejoiced over your fathers,

¹⁰if you will obey the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

¹¹For this commandment which I command you today is not too hard for you or too distant.

¹²It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up for us to heaven, bring it to us, and proclaim it to us, that we may do it?”

¹³Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us, bring it to us, and proclaim it to us, that we may do it?”

¹⁴But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

¹⁵Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil.

¹⁶For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it.

¹⁷But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away and worship other gods, and serve them,

¹⁸I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it.

¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants,

²⁰to love the LORD your God, to obey his voice, and to cling to him; for he is your life, and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

Deuteronomy 31

¹Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.

²He said to them, “I am one hundred twenty years old today. I can no more go out and come in. The LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan.’

³The LORD your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua will go over before you, as the LORD has spoken.

⁴The LORD will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when he destroyed them.

⁵The LORD will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandment which I have commanded you.

⁶Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or scared of them, for the LORD your God himself is who goes with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.”

⁷Moses called to Joshua, and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, 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 inherit it.

⁸The LORD himself is who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be discouraged.”

⁹Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the LORD’s covenant, and to all the elders of Israel.

¹⁰Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the feast of booths,

¹¹when all Israel has come to appear before the LORD your God in the place which he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

¹²Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones, and the foreigners who are within your gates, that they may hear, learn, fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law,

¹³and that their children, who have not known, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land where you go over the Jordan to possess it.”

¹⁴The LORD said to Moses, “Behold, your days approach that you must die. Call Joshua, and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting, that I may commission him.” Moses and Joshua went, and presented themselves in the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁵The LORD appeared in the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood over the Tent’s door.

¹⁶The LORD said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.

¹⁷Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Haven’t these evils come on us because our God is not among us?’

¹⁸I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods.

¹⁹“Now therefore write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.

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

²¹It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their descendants; for I know their ways and what they are doing today, before I have brought them into the land which I promised them.”

²²So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the children of Israel.

²³He commissioned Joshua the son of Nun, and said, “Be strong and courageous; for you shall bring the children of Israel into the land which I swore to them. I will be with you.”

²⁴When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,

²⁵Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the LORD’s covenant, saying,

²⁶“Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the LORD your God’s covenant, that it may be there for a witness against you.

²⁷For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. Behold, while I am yet alive with you today, you have been rebellious against the LORD. How much more after my death?

²⁸Assemble 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.

²⁹For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn away from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will happen to you in the latter days, because you will do that which is evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.”

³⁰Moses spoke in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished.