Deuteronomy, 7 - 13
7 WHEN THE LORD YOUR GOD BRINGS YOU into the land which you are
entering to occupy and drives out many nations before you——Hittites,
Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites,
seven nations more numerous and powerful than you——when the LORD
your God delivers them into your power and you defeat them, you must
put them to death. You must not make a treaty with them or spare them.
You must not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to
their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons; if you do, they will
draw your sons away from the LORD and make them worship other gods.
Then the LORD will be angry with you and will quickly destroy you. But
this is what you must do to them: pull down their altars, break their sacred
pillars, hack down their sacred poles and destroy their idols by fire, for you
are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your god chose you out
of all nations on earth to be his special possession.
It was not because you were more numerous than any other nation that
the LORD cared for you and chose you, for you were the smallest of all
nations; it was because the LORD loved you and stood by his oath to your
forefathers, that he brought you out with his strong hand and redeemed
you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Know then that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God; with those
who love him and keep his commandments he keeps covenant and faith
for a thousand generations, but those who defy him and show their hatred
for him he repays with destruction: he will not be slow to requite any who
so hate him.
You are to observe these commandments, statutes, and laws which I give
you this day, and keep them.
If you listen to these laws and are careful to observe them, then the LORD
your God will observe the sworn covenant he made with your forefathers
and will keep faith with you. He will love you, bless you and cause you to
increase. He will bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, your
corn and new wine and oil, the offspring of your herds, and of your lamb-
ing flocks, in the land which he swore to your forefathers to give you. You
shall be blessed above every other nation; neither among your people nor
among your cattle shall there be impotent male and barren female. The LORD
will take away all sickness from you; he will not bring upon you any of the
foul diseases of Egypt which you know so well, but will bring hem upon
all your enemies. You shall devour all the nations which the LORD your
God is giving over to you. Spare none of them, and do not worship their
gods; that is the snare which awaits you.
You may say to yourselves, 'These nations outnumber us, how can we
drive them out?' But you need have no fear of them; only remember what
the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to the whole of Egypt, the great
challenge which you yourselves witnessed, the signs and portents, the
strong hand and the outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought
you out. He will deal thus with all the nations of whom you are afraid. He
will also spread panic among them until all who are left or have gone into
hiding perish before you. Be in no dread of them, for the LORD your God
is in your midst, a great and terrible god. He will drive out these nations
before you little by little. You will not be able to exterminate them quickly,
for fear the wild beasts become too numerous for you. The LORD your God
will deliver these nations over to you and will throw them into great panic
in the hour of their destruction. he will put their kings into your hands,
and you shall wipe out their names from under heaven. When you destroy
them, no man will be able to withstand you. Their idols you shall destroy
by fire; you must not covet the silver and gold on them and take it for
yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for these things are abominable
to the LORD your God. You must not introduce any abominable idol
into your houses and thus bring yourselves under solemn ban along with
it. You shall hold it loathsome and abominable, for it is forbidden under
the ban.
8 You must carefully observe everything that I command you this day so
that you may live and increase and may enter and occupy the land which
the LORD promised to your forefathers upon oath. You must remember all
that road by which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the
wilderness to humble you, to test you and to discover whether or no it was
in your heart to keep his commandments. He humbled you and made you
hungry; then he fed you on manna which neither you nor your fathers had
known before, to teach you that man cannot live on bread alone but lives
by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. The clothes on
your backs did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years.
Take this lesson to heart: that the LORD your God was disciplining you as
a father disciplines his son; and keep the commandments of the LORD your
God, conforming to his ways and fearing him. For the LORD your God is
bringing you to a rich land , a land of streams, of springs and underground
waters gushing out in hill and valley, a land of wheat and barley, of vines,
fig-trees, and pomegranates, a land of olives, oil, and honey. It is a land
where you will never live in poverty nor want for anything, a land whose
stones are iron-ore and from whose hills you will dig copper. You will have
plenty to eat and will bless the LORD your God for the rich land that he has
given you.
Take care not to forget the LORD your God and do not fail to keep his
commandments, laws and statutes which I give you this day. When you
have plenty to eat and live in fine houses of your own building, when your
herds and flocks increase, and your silver and gold and all your possessions
increase too, do not become proud and forget the LORD your God who
brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery; he led you through the
vast and terrible wilderness infested with poisonous snakes and scorpions,
a thirsty, waterless land, where he caused water to flow from the hard rock;
he fed you in the wilderness on manna which your fathers did not know, to
humble you and tst you, and in the end to make you prosper. Nor must
you say to yourselves, 'My own strength and energy have gained me this
wealth', but remember the LORD your God; it is he that gives you strength
to become prosperous, so fulfilling the covenant guaranteed by oath with
your forefathers, as he is doing now.
If you forget the LORD your God and adhere to other gods, worshipping
them and bowing down to them, I give you a solemn warning this day that
you will certainly be destroyed. You will be destroyed because of your dis-
obedience to the LORD your God, as surely as were the nations whom the
LORD destroyed at your coming.
9 Listen, O Israel; this day you will cross the Jordan to occupy the
territory of nations greater and more powerful than you, and great cities
with walls towering to the sky. They are great and tall people, the descend-
ants of the Anakim, of whom you know, for you have heard it said, 'Who
can withstand the sons of Anak?' Know then this day that it is the LORD
your God himself who goes at your head as a devouring fire; he will subdue
them and destroy them at your approach; you shall drive them out and
overwhelm them, as he promised you.
When the LORD your God drives them out before you, do not say to
yourselves, 'It is because of my own merit that the LORD has brought me in
to occupy this land.' It is not because of your merit or your integrity that
you are entering the land you occupy; it is because of the wickedness of
these nations that the LORD your God is driving them out before you, and
to fulfil the promise which the LORD made to your forefathers, Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob.
Know then that it is not because of any merit of yours that the LORD
your God is giving you this rich land to occupy; indeed you are a stubborn
people. Remember and never forget, how you angered the LORD your God
in the wilderness: from the day when you left Egypt until you came to this
place you have defied the LORD. In Horeb you roused the LORD's anger,
and the LORD in his wrath was on the point of destroying you. When I
went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the
covenant which the LORD made with you, I remained on the mountain
forty days and forty nights without food or drink. Then the LORD gave me
the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and upon them
were all the words the LORD spoke to you out of the fire, upon the mountain
on the day of the assembly. At the end of forty days and forty nights the
LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant, and said
to me, 'Make haste down from the mountain because your people whom
you brought out of Egypt have done a disgraceful thing. They have already
turned aside from the way which I told them to follow and have cast for
themselves an image of metal.'
Then the LORD said to me, 'I have considered this people and I find
them a stubborn people. Let me be, and I will destroy them and blot out
their name from under heaven; and of you alone I will make a nation more
powerful and numerous than they.' So I turned and went down the moun-
tain, and it was ablaze; and I had the two tablets of he covenant in my
hands. When I saw that you had sinned against the LORD your God and
had cast for yourselves an image of a bull-calf, and had already turned
aside from the way the LORD had told you to follow, I took the two tablets
and flung them down and shattered them in the sight of you all. Then once
again I lay prostrate before the LORD, forty days and forty nights without
food or drink, on account of all the sins that you had committed, and
because you had done what was wring in the eyes of the LORD and provoked
him to anger. I dreaded the LORD's anger and his wrath which threatened
to destroy you; and once again the LORD listened to me. The LORD was
greatly incensed with Aaron also and would have killed him; so I prayed
for him as well at the same time. I took the calf, that sinful thing that you
had made and burnt it and pounded it, grinding it down until it was as fine as
dust; then I flung its dust into the torrent that flowed down the mountain.
You also roused the LORD's anger at Taberah, and at Massah, and at
Kibroth-hattavah. Again, when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea
with orders to advance and occupy the land which he was giving you, you
defied the LORD your God and did not trust him or obey him. You were
defiant from the day that the LORD first knew you. Forty days and forty
nights I lay prostrate before the LORD because he had threatened to destroy
you, and I prayed to the LORD and said, 'O Lord God, do not destroy thy
people, thy own possession, whom thou didst redeem by thy great power
and bring out of Egypt by thy strong hand. Remember thy servants,
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and overlook the stubbornness of this people,
their wickedness and their sin; otherwise the people in the land out of
which thou didst lead us will say, "It is because the LORD was not able to
bring them into the land which he promised them and because he hated
them, that he has led them out to kill them in the wilderness." But they are
thy people, thy own possession, whom thou didst bring out by thy great
strength and by thy outstretched arm.'
10 AT THAT TIME THE LORD SAID to me, 'Cut two tablets of stone like the
first, and make also a wooden chest, an Ark. Come to me on the mountain,
and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which
you broke in pieces, and you shall put them into the Ark.' So I made the
Ark of acacia-wood and cut the two tablets of stone like the first, and went up
the mountain taking the tablets with me. The in the same writing as
before the LORD wrote down the Ten Words which he had spoken to
you out of the fire, upon the mountain on the day of the assembly, and the
LORD gave them to me. I turned and came down the mountain, and I put
the tablets in the Ark that I had made, as the LORD had commanded me,
and there they have remained ever since.
(The Israelites journeyed by stages from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah.
There Aaron died and was buried; and his son Eleazar succeeded him in
the priesthood. From there they came to Gudgodah and from Gudgodah
to Jotbathah, a land of many ravines. At that time the LORD set apart the
tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD, to attend on the
LORD to minister to him, and to give the blessing in his name, as they
have done to this day. That is why the Levites have no holding or patri-
mony with their kinsmen; the LORD is their patrimony, as he promised
them.)
I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I did before,
and once again the LORD listened to me; he consented not to destroy you.
The LORD said to me, 'Set out now at the head of the people so that
they may enter and occupy the land which I swore to give to their fore-
fathers.'
What then, O Israel, does the LORD your God as of you? Only to fear
the LORD your God, to conform to all his ways, to love him and to serve
him with all your heart and soul. This you will do by keping the command-
ments of the LORD and his statutes which I give you this day for your good.
To the LORD your God belongs heaven itself, the highest heaven, the earth
and everything in it; yet the LORD cared for your forefathers in his love for
them and chose their descendants after them. Out of all nations you were
his chosen people as you are this day. So now you must circumcise the
foreskin of your hearts and not be stubborn any more, for the LORD your
God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and terrible God.
He is no respecter of persons and is not to be bribed; he secures justice
for widows and orphans, and loves the alien who lives among you, giving
him food and clothing. You too must love the alien, for you once lived as
aliens in Egypt. You must fear the LORD your God, serve him, hold fast
to him and take your oaths in his name. He is your praise , your God who
has done for you these great and terrible things which you have seem with
your own eyes. When your forefathers went down into Egypt they were
only seventy strong, but now the LORD your God has made you countless
as the stars in the sky.
11 You shall love the LORD your God and keep for all time the charge he
laid upon you, the statutes, the laws, and the commandments. This day
you know the discipline of the LORD, though your children who have
neither known nor experienced it do not; you know his greatness, his
strong hand and outstretched arm, the signs he worked and his acts in
Egypt against Pharaoh the king and his country, and all that he did to the
Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, when he caused the waters of
the Red Sea to flow over them as they pursued you. In this way the LORD
destroyed them, and so things remain to this day. You know what he did
for you in the wilderness as you journeyed to this place, and what he did to
Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, when the earth opened
its mouth and swallowed them in the sight of all Israel, together with their
households and their tents and every thing in their company. With
your own eyes you have seen the mighty work that the LORD did.
You shall observe all that I commanded you this day, so that you may have
strength to enter and occupy the land into which you are crossing, and so
that you may live long in the land which the LORD swore to your forefathers
to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
The land which you are entering to occupy is not like the land of Egypt
from which you have come, where, after sowing your seed, you irrigated it
by foot like a vegetable garden. But the land into which you are crossing
to occupy is a land of mountains and valleys watered by the rain of heaven.
It is a land which the LORD your God tends and on which his eye rests
from year's end to year's end. If you pay heed to the commandments which
I give you this day, and love the LORD your God and serve him with all
your heart and soul, then I will send rain for your land in season, both
autumn and spring rains, and you will gather your corn and new wine and
oil, and I will provide pasture in the fields for your cattle: you shall eat
your fill. Take good care not to be led astray in your hearts nor to turn
aside and serve other gods and prostrate yourselves to them, or the LORD
will become angry with you: you will shut up the skies and there will be no
rain, your ground will not yield its harvest, and you will soon vanish from
the rich land which the LORD is giving you. You shall take these words of
mine to heart and keep them in mind; you shall bind them as a sign on the
hand and wear them as a phylactery on the forehead. Teach them to your
children, and speak of them indoors and out of doors, when you lie down
and when you rise. Write them up on the door-posts of your houses and
on your gates. Then you will live long, you and your children, in the land
which the LORD swore to your forefathers to give them, for as long as the
heavens are above the earth.
If you diligently keep all these commandments that I now charge you
to observe, by loving the LORD your God, by conforming to his ways and
by holding fast to him, the LORD will drive out all these nations before you
and you shall occupy the territory of nations greater and more powerful
than you. Every place where you set the soles of your feet shall be yours.
Your borders shall run from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the
River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. No man will be able to
withstand you; the LORD your God will put the fear and dread of you upon
the whole land on which you set foot, as he promised you. Understand that
this day I offer you the choice of a blessing and a curse. The blessing will
come if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God which I
give you this day, and the curse if you do not listen to the commandments
of the LORD your God but turn aside from the way that I command you
this day and follow other gods whom you do not know.
When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you are enter-
ing to occupy, there on Mount Gerizim you shall pronounce the blessing
and on Mount Ebal the curse. (These mountains are on the other side of
the Jordan, close to Gilgal beside the terebinth of Moreh, beyond the road
to the west which lies in the territory of the Canaanites of the Arabah.)
You are about to cross the Jordan to enter and occupy the land which the
LORD your God is giving you; you shall occupy it and settle in it, and you
shall be careful to observe all the statutes and laws which I set before you
this day.
12 THESE ARE THE STATUTES AND LAWS that you shall be careful to
observe in the land which the LORD the God of your fathers is giving
you to occupy as long as you live on earth. You shall demolish all the
sanctuaries where the nations whose place you are taking worship their
gods, on mountain-tops and hills and under every spreading tree. You shall
pull down their altars and break their sacred pillars, burn their sacred poles
and hack down the idols of their gods and thus blot out the name of them
from that place.
You shall not follow such practices in the worship of the LORD your God,
but you shall resort to the place which the LORD your God will choose out
of all your tribes to receive his Name that it may dwell there. There you
shall come and bring your whole-offerings, and the first born of your
herds and flocks. There you shall eat before the LORD your God; so you
shall find joy in whatever you undertake, you and your families, because
the LORD your God has blessed you.
You shall not act as we act here today, each of us doing what he pleases,
for till now you have not reached the place of rest, the patrimony which
the LORD your God is giving you. You shall cross the Jordan and settle in
the land which the LORD your God allows you as your patrimony; he will
grant you peace from all your enemies on every side, and you will live in
security. Then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place
which the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name——your
whole-offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, and all the
choice gifts that you have vowed to the LORD. You shall rejoice before the
LORD your God with your sons and daughters, your male and female
slaves, and the Levites who live in your settlements because they have no
holding or patrimony among you.
See that you do not offer your whole-offerings in any place at random,
but offer them only at the place which the LORD will choose in one of your
tribes, and there you must do all I command you. On the other hand, you
may freely kill for food in all your settlements, as the LORD your God blesses
you. Clean and unclean alike may eat it, as they would eat the meat of
gazelle or buck. But on no account must you eat the blood; pour it out on
the ground like water. In all your settlements you may not eat any of the
tithe of your corn and new wine and oil, or any of the first-borm of your
cattle and sheep, or any of the gifts that you vow, or any of the freewill
offerings and contributions but you shall eat it before the LORD your God
in the place that the LORD your God will choose——you, your sons and
daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levites in your settle-
ments; so you shall find joy before the LORD your God in all that you
undertake. Be careful not to neglect the Levites in your land as long as
you live.
When the LORD your God extends your boundaries, as he has promised
you, and you say to yourselves, 'I would like to eat meat', because you have
a craving for it, then you may freely eat it. If the place that the LORD your
God will choose to receive his Name is far away, then you may slaughter
a beast from the herds or flocks which the LORD has given you and freely
eat it in your own settlements as I command you. You may eat it as you
would the meat of gazelle or buck; both clean and unclean alike may eat it.
But you must strictly refrain from eating the blood, because the blood is
the life; you must not eat the life with the flesh. You must not eat it, you
must pour it out on the ground like water. If you do not eat it, all will be
well with you and your children after you; for you will be doing what is
right in the eyes of the LORD. But such holy-gifts as you may have and the
gifts you have vowed, you must bring to the place which the LORD will
choose. You must present your whole-offerings, both the flesh and the
blood, on the altar of the LORD your God; but of your shared-offerings
you shall eat the flesh, while the blood is to be poured on the altar of the
LORD your God. See that you listen and do all that I command you, and
then it will go well with you and your children after you for ever; for you
will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.
When the LORD your God exterminates, as you advance, the nations
whose country you are entering to occupy, you shall take their place and
settle in their land. After they have been destroyed, take care that you are
not ensnared into their ways. Do not inquire about their god and say,
'How do these nations worship their gods? I too will do the same.' You
must not do for the LORD your God what they do, for all that they do for
their god is hateful and abominable to the LORD. As sacrifices for their
gods they even burn their sons and daughters.
See that you observe everything I command you: you must not add
anything to it, nor take anything away from it.
13 When a prophet or dreamer appears among you and offers you a sign
or a portent and calls on you to follow other gods whom you have not known
and worship them, even if the sign or portent should come true, do not
listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer. God is testing you
through him to discover whether you love the LORD your God with all
your heart and soul. You must follow the LORD your God and fear him;
you must keep his commandments and obey him, serve him and hold fast
to him. That prophet or that dreamer shall be put to death, for he has
preached rebellion against the LORD your God who brought you out of
Egypt and redeemed you from that land of slavery; he has tried to lead you
astray from the path which the LORD your God commanded you to take.
You must rid yourselves of this wickedness.
If your brother, your father's son or your mother's son, or your son or
daughter, or the wife of your bosom or your dearest friends should entice
you secretly to go and worship other gods——gods whom neither you nor
your fathers have known, gods of the people round about you, near or far,
at one end of the land or the other——then you shall not consent or listen.
You shall have no pity on him, you shall not spare him nor shield him, you
shall put him to death; your own hands shall be the first to be raised against
him and then all the people shall follow. You shall stone him to death,
because he tried to lead you astray from the LORD your God who brought
you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. All Israel shall hear of it and
be afraid; never again will anything as wicked as this be done among you.
When you hear that miscreants have appeared in any of the cities which
the LORD your God is giving them to occupy, and have led its inhabitants
stray by calling on them to serve other gods whom you have not known,
then you shall investigate the matter carefully. If, after diligent examination,
the report proves to be true and it is shown that this abominable thing has
been done among you, you shall put the inhabitants of that city to the
sword; you shall lay the city under solemn ban together with everything
in it. You shall gather all its good into the square and burn both city and
goods as a complete offering to the LORD your God; and it shall remain a
mound of ruins, never to be rebuilt. Let nothing out of all that has been
laid under the ban be found in your possession, so that the LORD may turn
from his anger and show you compassion; and in his compassion he will
increase you as he swore to your forefathers, provided that you obey the
LORD your God and keep all his commandments which I give you this day,
doing only what is right in the eyes of the LORD your God.
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Apr 13, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC
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