So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord , the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.

You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did with regard to the Baal of Peor—how the Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor,

while those of you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today.

See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.

You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!”

For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?

And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children—

how you once stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, “Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and may teach their children so”;

you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds.

Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.

He declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two stone tablets.

And the Lord charged me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.

Since you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely,

so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure—the likeness of male or female,

the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,

the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.

And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven.

But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron-smelter, out of Egypt, to become a people of his very own possession, as you are now.

The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he vowed that I should not cross the Jordan and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving for your possession.

For I am going to die in this land without crossing over the Jordan, but you are going to cross over to take possession of that good land.

So be careful not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God made with you, and not to make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you.

For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

When you have had children and children's children, and become complacent in the land, if you act corruptly by making an idol in the form of anything, thus doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, and provoking him to anger,

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to occupy; you will not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed.

The Lord will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you will be left among the nations where the Lord will lead you.

There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul.

In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him.

Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.

For ask now about former ages, long before your own, ever since the day that God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of heaven to the other: has anything so great as this ever happened or has its like ever been heard of?

Has any people ever heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have heard, and lived?

Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by terrifying displays of power, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

To you it was shown so that you would acknowledge that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.

From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, while you heard his words coming out of the fire.

And because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants after them. He brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,

driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, giving you their land for a possession, as it is still today.

So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

Keep his statutes and his commandments, which I am commanding you today for your own well-being and that of your descendants after you, so that you may long remain in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.
Cities of Refuge East of the Jordan

Then Moses set apart on the east side of the Jordan three cities

to which a homicide could flee, someone who unintentionally kills another person, the two not having been at enmity before; the homicide could flee to one of these cities and live:

Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland belonging to the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead belonging to the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan belonging to the Manassites.
Transition to the Second Address

This is the law that Moses set before the Israelites.

These are the decrees and the statutes and ordinances that Moses spoke to the Israelites when they had come out of Egypt,

beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of King Sihon of the Amorites, who reigned at Heshbon, whom Moses and the Israelites defeated when they came out of Egypt.

They occupied his land and the land of King Og of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites on the eastern side of the Jordan:

from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Wadi Arnon, as far as Mount Sirion (that is, Hermon),

together with all the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.

The Great Commandment

Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy,

so that you and your children and your children's children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long.

Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord , the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. our God is one Lord, our God, the Lord is one, is our God, the Lord is one

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.

Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,

and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Caution against Disobedience

When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build,

houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill,

take care that you do not forget the Lord , who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

The Lord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.

Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you,

because the Lord your God, who is present with you, is a jealous God. The anger of the Lord your God would be kindled against you and he would destroy you from the face of the earth.

Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

You must diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded you.

Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord , so that it may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you,

thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.

When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?”

then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household.

He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors.

Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case.

If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.”

Rewards for Obedience

You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always.

Remember today that it was not your children (who have not known or seen the discipline of the Lord your God), but it is you who must acknowledge his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm,

his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land;

what he did to the Egyptian army, to their horses and chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, so that the Lord has destroyed them to this day;

what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place;

and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how in the midst of all Israel the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, their tents, and every living being in their company;

for it is your own eyes that have seen every great deed that the Lord did.

Keep, then, this entire commandment that I am commanding you today, so that you may have strength to go in and occupy the land that you are crossing over to occupy,

and so that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden.

But the land that you are crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky,

a land that the Lord your God looks after. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today—loving the Lord your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul—

then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil;

and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill.

Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshiping them,

for then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no fruit; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead.

Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,

so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

If you will diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,

then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and mightier than yourselves.

Every place on which you set foot shall be yours; your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the Western Sea.

No one will be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put the fear and dread of you on all the land on which you set foot, as he promised you.

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:

the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today;

and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known.

When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that you are entering to occupy, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

As you know, they are beyond the Jordan, some distance to the west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh.

When you cross the Jordan to go in to occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and when you occupy it and live in it,

you must diligently observe all the statutes and ordinances that I am setting before you today.

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

May my teaching drop like the rain, my speech condense like the dew; like gentle rain on grass, like showers on new growth.

For I will proclaim the name of the Lord ; ascribe greatness to our God!

The Rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God, without deceit, just and upright is he;

yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him, a perverse and crooked generation.

Do you thus repay the Lord , O foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?

Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you.

When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods;

the Lord 's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.

He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye.

As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions,

the Lord alone guided him; no foreign god was with him.

He set him atop the heights of the land, and fed him with produce of the field; he nursed him with honey from the crags, with oil from flinty rock;

curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs and rams; Bashan bulls and goats, together with the choicest wheat— you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.

Jacob ate his fill; Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You grew fat, bloated, and gorged! He abandoned God who made him, and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.

They made him jealous with strange gods, with abhorrent things they provoked him.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to deities they had never known, to new ones recently arrived, whom your ancestors had not feared.

You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.

The Lord saw it, and was jealous he spurned his sons and daughters.

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 there is no faithfulness.

They made me jealous with what is no god, provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with what is no people, provoke them with a foolish nation.

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

I will heap disasters upon them, spend my arrows against them:

wasting hunger, burning consumption, bitter pestilence. The teeth of beasts I will send against them, with venom of things crawling in the dust.

In the street the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers terror, for young man and woman alike, nursing child and old gray head.

I thought to scatter them and blot out the memory of them from humankind;

but I feared provocation by the enemy, for their adversaries might misunderstand and say, “Our hand is triumphant; it was not the Lord who did all this.”

They are a nation void of sense; there is no understanding in them.

If they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern what the end would be.

How could one have routed a thousand, and two put a myriad to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, the Lord had given them up?

Indeed their rock is not like our Rock; our enemies are fools.

Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom, from the vineyards of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter;

their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps.

Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries?

Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; because the day of their calamity is at hand, their doom comes swiftly.

Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people, have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, neither bond nor free remaining.

Then he will say: Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their libations? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!

See now that I, even I, am he; there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand.

For I lift up my hand to heaven, and swear: As I live forever,

when I whet my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold on judgment; I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay those who hate me.

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 enemy.

Praise, O heavens, his people, worship him, all you gods! For he will avenge the blood of his children, and take vengeance on his adversaries; he will repay those who hate him, and cleanse the land for his people.

Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun.

When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel,

he said to them: “Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law.

This is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life; through it you may live long in the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.”
Moses' Death Foretold

On that very day the Lord addressed Moses as follows:

“Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession;

you shall die there on the mountain that you ascend and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin;

because both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites.

Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it—the land that I am giving to the Israelites.”