Deuteronomy 26 - 29
26 WHEN YOU COME INTO THE LAND which the LORD your God is giving
you to occupy as your patrimony and settle in it, you shall take the first-
fruits of all the produce of the soil, which you gather in from the land which
the LORD your God is giving you, and put them in a basket. Then you shall
go to the place which the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his
Name and come to the priest, whoever he shall be in those days. You shall
say to him, 'I declare this day to the LORD your God that I have entered
the land which the LORD sore to our forefathers to give us.' The priest
shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the
LORD your God. Then you shall solemnly recite before the LORD your God:
'My father was a homeless Aramaean who went down to Egypt with a
small company and lived there until they became a great, powerful, and
numerous nation. But the Egyptians ill-treated us, humiliated us and im-
posed cruel slavery upon us. Then we cried to the LORD the God of our
fathers for help, and he listened to us and saw our humiliation, our hard-
ship and distress; and so the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a strong
hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying deeds, and with signs and
portents. He brought us to this place and ave us this land, a land flowing
with milk and honey. And now I have brought the firstfruits of the soil
which thou, O LORD, hast given me.' You shall then set the basket before
the LORD your God and bow down in worship before him. You shall all
rejoice, you and the Levites and the aliens living among you, for all the
good things which the LORD your God has given you and to your family.
When you have finished taking a tithe of your produce in the third year,
the tithe-year, you shall give it to the Levites and to the aliens, the orphans,
and the widows. They shall eat in your settlements and be well fed. Then
you shall declare before the LORD your God: 'I have rid my house of the
tithe that was holy to the and given it to the Levites, to the aliens, the
orphans, and the widows, according to all the commandments which thou
didst lay upon me. I have not broken or forgotten any of thy command-
ments. I have not eaten any of the tithe while in mourning, nor have I rid
myself of it for unclean purposes, nor offered any of it to the dead. I have
obeyed the LORD my God: I have done all that thou didst command me.
Look down from heaven, thy holy dwelling-place, and bless thy people
Israel and the ground which thou hast given us as thou didst swear to
our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.'
This day the LORD your God commands you to keep these statutes and
laws: be careful to observe them with all your heart and soul. You have
recognized the LORD this day as your God; you are to conform to his ways,
to keep his statutes, his commandments, and his laws, and to obey him.
The LORD has recognized you this day as his special possession, as he
promised you, and to keep his commandments; he will raise you high
above all the nations which he has made, to bring him praise and fame and
glory, and to be a people holy to the LORD your God, according to his
promise.
27 MOSES, WITH THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL, gave the people this charge:
'Keep all the commandments that I lay upon you this day. On the
day that you cross the Jordan to the land which the LORD your God is
giving you, you shall set up great stones and plaster them over. You shall
inscribe on them all the words of this law, when you have crossed over to
enter the land which the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with
milk and honey, as the LORD the God of your fathers promised you. When
you have crossed the Jordan you shall set up these stones on Mount Ebal,
as I command you this day, and cover them with plaster. You shall build
an altar there to the LORD your God: it shall be an altar of stones on which
you shall use no tool of iron. You shall build the altar of the LORD your
God with blocks of undressed stone, and you shall offer whole-offerings
upon it to the LORD your God. You shall slaughter shared-offerings and
eat them there, and rejoice before the LORD your God. You shall inscribe
on the stones all the words of this law, engraving them with care.'
Moses and the levitical priests spoke to all Israel, 'Be silent, Israel, and
listen; this day you have become a people belonging to the LORD your God.
Obey the LORD your God, and observe his commandments and statutes
which I lay upon you this day.'
That day Moses gave the people this command: 'Those who shall stand
for the blessing of the people on Mount Gerizim when you have crossed
the Jordan are these: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.
Those who shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse are these: Reuben,
Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.'
The Levites, in the hearing of all Israel, shall intone these words:
'A curse upon the man who carves an idol or casts an image, anything
abominable to the LORD that craftsmen make, and sets it up in secret':
the people shall all respond. 'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who moves his neighbour's boundary stone': the
people shall all say, 'Amen.
'A curse upon him whom misdirects a blind man': the people shall all say,
'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who withholds justice from the alien, the orphan, and
the widow': the people shall all say 'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who lies with his father's wife, for he brings shame
upon his father ': the people shall all say, 'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who lies with any animal': the people shall all say,
'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who lies with his sister, his father's daughter or his
mother's daughter': the people shall all say, 'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who lies with his wife's mother': the people shall all
say, 'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who strikes another man in secret': the people shall
all say, 'Amen.'
'A curse upon him who takes reward to kill a man with whom he has no
feud': the people shall all say, 'Amen.'
'A curse upon any man who does not fulfil this law by doing all that it
prescribes': the people shall all say, 'Amen.'
28 IF YOU WILL OBEY THE LORD your God by diligently observing all
his commandments which I lay upon you this day, then the LORD your
God will raise you high above all nations of the earth, and all these
blessing shall come to you and light upon you, because you obey the LORD
you God:
A blessing on you in the city; a blessing on you in the country.
A blessing on the fruit of your body, the fruit of your land and of your
cattle, the offspring of your herds and of your lambing flocks.
A blessing on your basket and your kneading-trough.
A blessing on you as you come in; a blessing on you as you go out.
May the LORD deliver up the enemies who attack you and let them be
put to rout before you. Though they come out against you by one way,
they shall flee before you by seven ways.
May the LORD grant you a blessing in your granaries and in all your
labours; may the LORD your God bless you in the land which he is giving
you.
The LORD will set you up as his own holy people, as he swore to you, if
you will keep the commandments of the LORD your God and conform to his
ways. Then all people on earth shall see that the LORD has named you as
his very own, and they shall go in fear of you. The LORD will make you
prosper greatly in the fruit of your body and of your cattle, and in the fruit
of the ground in the land which he swore to your forefathers to give you.
May the LORD open the heavens for you, his rich treasure house, to give
rain upon your land at the proper time and bless everything to which you
turn your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow;
the LORD will make you the head and not the tail: you shall be always at the
top and never at the bottom, when you listen to the commandments of
the LORD your God, which I give you this day to keep and to fulfil. You shall
turn neither to the right nor to the left from all the things which I command
you this day nor shall you follow after and worship other gods.
BUT IF YOU DO NOT OBEY the LORD your God by diligently observing
all his commandments and statutes which I lay upon you this day, then all
these maledictions shall come to you and light upon you:
A curse upon you in the city; a curse upon you in the country.
A curse upon your basket and your kneading-trough.
A curse upon the fruit of your body, the fruit of your land, the offspring
of your herds and of your lambing flocks.
A curse upon you as you come in; and a curse upon you as you go out.
May the LORD send upon you starvation, burning thirst, and dysentery,
whatever you are about, until you are destroyed and quickly perish for
your evil doings, because you have forsaken me.
May the LORD cause pestilence to haunt you until he has exterminated
you out of the land which you are entering to occupy; may the LORD
afflict you with wasting disease and recurrent fever, ague and eruptions;
with drought, black blight and red; and may these plague you until you
perish. May the skies above you be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.
May the LORD turn the rain upon your country into fine sand, and may dust
come down upon you from the sky until you are blotted out.
May the LORD put you to rout before the enemy. Though you go out
against them by one way, you shall flee before them by seven ways. May
you be repugnant to all the kingdoms on earth. May your bodies become
food for the birds of the air and the wild beasts, with no man to scare them
away.
May the LORD strike you with Egyptian boils and with tumours, scabs,
and itches, for which you will find no cure. May the LORD strike you with
madness, blindness, and bewilderment; so that you will grope about in
broad daylight, just as a blind man gropes in darkness, and you will fail
to find your way. You will also be oppressed and robbed, day in, day out,
with no one to save you. A woman will be pledged to you, but another
shall ravish her; you will build a house but not live in it; you will plant a
vineyard but not enjoy its fruit. Your ox will be slaughtered before your
eyes, but you will not eat any of it; and before your eyes your ass will be
stolen and will not come back to you; your sheep will be given to the enemy,
and there will be no one to recover them. Your sons and daughters will be
given to another people while you look on; your eyes will strain after them
all day long, and you will be powerless. A nation whom you do not know
shall eat the fruit of your land and all your toil, and your lot will be nothing
but brutal oppression. The sights you see will drive you mad. May the
LORD strike you on knee and leg with malignant boils for which you will
find no cure; they will spread from the sole of your foot to the crow of
your head. May the LORD give you up, you and the king whom you have
appointed, to a nation whom neither you nor your fathers have known, and
there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. You will
become a horror, a byword, and an object-lesson to all the peoples among
whom the LORD disperses you.
You will carry out seed for your fields in plenty, but you will harvest
little; for locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate
them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grape; for the grub
will eat them. You will have olive-trees all over your territory, but you will
not anoint yourselves with their oil; for your olives will drop off. You will
bear sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours because they will be
taken into captivity. All your trees and the fruit of the ground will be
infested with the mole cricket. The alien who lives with you will raise
himself higher and higher, and you will sink lower and lower. He will lend
to you but you will not lend to him; he will be the head and you the tail.
All these maledictions will come upon you; they will pursue you and
overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the LORD
your God by keeping the commandments and statutes which he gave you.
They shall be a sign and a portent to you and your descendants for ever,
because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and with a glad
heart for all your blessings. Then in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and
extreme want, you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send
against you, and they put a yoke of iron on your neck when they have
subdued you. May the LORD raise against you a nation from afar, from the
other end of the earth, who will swoop upon you like a vulture, a nation
whose language you will not understand, a nation of grim aspect with no
reverence for age and no pity for the young. They will devour the young
of your cattle and the fruit of your land, when you have been subdued.
They will leave you neither corn, nor new wine nor oil, neither the off-
spring of your herds nor of your lambing flocks, until you are annihilated.
They will besiege you in all your cities until they bring down your lofty
impregnable walls, those city walls throughout your land in which you
trust. They will besiege you within all your cities, throughout the land
which the LORD your God has given you. Then you will eat your own
children, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the LORD your God
has given you, because of the dire straits to which you will be reduced
when your enemy besieges you. The pampered, delicate man will not share
with his brother, or the wife of his bosom, or his own remaining children,
any of the meat he is eating, the flesh of his own children. He is left
with nothing else because of the dire straits to which he will be reduced
when your enemy besieges you within your cities. The pampered, delicate
woman, the woman who has never even tried to put a foot to the ground,
so delicate and pampered she is, will not share with her own husband or
her son or her daughter the afterbirth which she expels, or any boy or girl
that she may bear. She will herself eat them secretly in her extreme want,
because of the dire straits to which you will be reduced when your enemy
besieges you within your cities.
If you do not observe and fulfil all the law written down in this book, if
you do not revere this honoured and dreaded name, the name 'the LORD
your God', then the LORD will strike you and your descendants with
unimaginable plagues, malignant and persistent, and with sickness,
persistent and severe. He will bring upon you once again all the diseases of
Egypt which you dread, and they will cling to you. The LORD will bring
upon you sickness and plague of every kind not written down in this book
of the law, until you are destroyed. Then you who were countless as the
stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you did not obey the
LORD your God. Just as the LORD took delight in you, prospering and
increasing you, so now it will be his delight to destroy and exterminate you,
and you will be uprooted from the land which you are entering to occupy.
The LORD will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to
the other, and there you will worship other gods whom neither you have
known nor your forefathers, gods of wood and stone. Among those nations
you will find no peace, no rest for the sole of your food. Then the LORD
will give you and unquiet mind, dim eyes, and failing appetite. Your life
will hang continually in suspense, fear will beset you night and day, and
you will find no security all your life long. Every morning you will say,
'Would God it were evening!', and every evening, 'Would God it were
morning!', for the fear that lives in your heart and the sights that you see.
The LORD will bring you sorrowing back to Egypt by that very road of
which I said to you, 'You shall not see that road again'; and there you will
offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves and slave-girls, but there
will be no buyer.
29 These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses
to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant which he
made with them on Horeb.
MOSES SUMMONED ALL THE ISRAELITES and said to them: 'You
have seen with your eyes all that the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh,
to all his servants, and to the whole land, the great challenge which you
yourselves witnessed, those great signs and portents, but to this day the
LORD has not given you a mind to learn, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. I
led you for forty years in the wilderness; your clothes did not wear out on
you, nor did your sandals wear out and fall off your feet; you ate no bread
and drank no wine or strong drink, in order that you might learn that I am
the LORD your God. You came to this place where Sihon king of Heshbon
and Og king of Bashan came to attack us, and we defeated them. We took
their land and gave it as patrimony to the Reubenites, thegadites, and
half the tribe of Manasseh. You shall observe the provisions of this cove-
nant and keep them so that you may be successful in all you do.
'You all stand here today before the LORD your God, tribal chiefs,
elders, and officers, all the men of Israel, with your dependants, your
wives, the aliens who live in your camp——all of them, from those who chop
wood to those who draw water——and you are ready to accept the oat and
enter into the covenant which the LORD your God is making with you
today. The covenant is to constitute you his people this day, and he will
be your God, as he promised you and as he swore to your forefathers,
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is not with you alone that I am making this
covenant and this oath, but with all those who stand here with us today
before the LORD our God and also with those who are not here with us
today. For you know how we lived in Egypt and how we and you, as we
passed through the nations, saw their loathsome idols and the false gods
they had, the gods of wood and stone, of silver and gold. If there should be
among you a man or a woman, family or tribe, who is moved today to turn
from the LORD our God and to go worshipping the gods of those nations——
if there is among you such a root from which springs gall and wormwood,
then when he hears the terms of this oath, he may inwardly flatter himself
and think, "All will be well with me even if I follow the promptings of my
stubborn heart"; but this will bring everything to ruin. The LORD will not
be willing to forgive him; for then his anger and resentment will overwhelm
this man, and the denunciations prescribed in this book will fall heavily
on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. The
LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster to fall upon
him, according to the oath required by the covenant and prescribed in this
book of the law.
'The next generation, your sons who follow you and the foreigners who
come from distant countries, will see the plagues of this land and the
ulcers which the LORD has brought upon its people, the whole land burnt
up with brimstone and salt, so that it cannot be sown, or yield herb or green
plant. It will be as desolate as were Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and
Zeboyim, when the LORD overthrew them in his anger and rage. Then
they, and all the nations with them, will ask, "Why has the LORD so
afflicted this land? Why has there been this great outburst of wrath?"
The answer will be: "Because they forsook the covenant of the LORD the
God of their fathers which he made with them when he brought them out
of Egypt. They began to worship other gods and to bow down to them,
gods whom they had not known and whom the LORD had not assigned to
them. The anger of the LORD was roused against that land, so that he
rooted them from their soil in anger, in wrath and great fury, and banished
them to another land, where they are to this day."
'There are things hidden, and they belong to the LORD our God, but
what is revealed belongs to us and to our children for ever; it is for us to
observe all that is prescribed in this law.
When these things have befallen you, the blessing and the curse of
which I have offered you the choice, if you and your sons take them to heart
there in the countries to which the LORD your God has banished you,
if you turn back to him and obey him heart and soul in all that I command
you this day, then the LORD your God will show you compassion and
restore your fortunes. He will gather you again from all the countries to
which he has scattered you. Even though he were to banish you to the four
corners of the world, the LORD your God will bring you into the
land which your forefathers occupied, and you will occupy it again; then
he will bring you prosperity and make you more numerous than your fore-
fathers were. The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the
hearts of your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart
and soul and you will live. Then the LORD your God will turn all these
denunciations against our enemies and the foes who persecute you. You
will then again obey the LORD and keep all his commandments which I
give you this day. The LORD your God will make you more than prosperous
in all that you do, in the fruit of your body and of your cattle and in the
fruits of the earth; for, when you obey the LORD your God by keeping his
commandments and statutes, as they are written in this book of the law,
and when you turn back to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul,
he will again rejoice over you and be good to you, as he rejoiced over your
forefathers.
'The commandment that I lay on you this day is not too difficult for you,
it is not too remote. It is not in heaven that you should say, "Who will go
up to heaven for us to fetch it and tell it to us, so that we can keep it?"
Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross the sea for
us to fetch it and tell it to us, so that we can keep it?" It is a thing very
near to you, upon your lips and in your heart ready to be kept.
'Today I offer you the choice of life and good, or death and evil. If you
obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I give you this day,
by living the LORD your God, by conforming to his ways and by keeping
his commandments, statutes, and laws, then you will live and increase, and
the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to
occupy. But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led
on to bow down to other gods and worship them, I tell you this day that
you will perish; you will not live long in the land which you will enter to
occupy after crossing the Jordan. I summon heaven and earth to witness
against you this day: I offer you the choice of life or death, blessing or
curse. Choose life and then you and your descendants will live; love the
LORD your God, obey him ad hold fast to him: that is life for you and
length of days in the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers,
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.'
The New English Bible (with Apocrypha)
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Posted Apr 16, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC
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