Onkelos Deuteronomy

Moses’ Opening Address

1 These are the words which Moses spoke with all Israel beyond the Jordan, rebuking them because they had sinned in the wilderness, and had provoked the Lord to anger on the plains opposite the Red Sea, in Paran, where they scorned the manna; and in Hazeroth, where they provoked to anger over meat, and because they had made the golden calf. 2 It is a journey of eleven days from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Petra-Geah. 3 And in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke with the sons of Israel according to all that the Lord had commanded him for them. 4 After he had defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, who lived at Ashtaroth in Edrei; 5 on this side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain the teaching of this law, saying:

Leaving Horeb

6 The Lord our God spoke with us at Horeb, saying: You have stayed long enough at this mountain: 7 turn, and set out, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all its inhabited regions in the plains, the mountain, the valleys, and in the south, and by the side of the sea; the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon, to the river, the great river Euphrates; 8 look, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord promised to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give it to them, and to your children after them.

Judges Appointed

9 And I spoke to you at that time, saying: I am not able to carry the responsibility for you alone. 10 The Lord your God has multiplied you; and, look, you are today as the stars of the heavens in number. 11 May the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more than you are, and bless you, as He has said to you! 12 How can I handle your burdens, your affairs, and your disputes alone? 13 Choose wise and discerning men of your tribes, and I will appoint them to be chiefs over you. 14 And you answered me, and said: What you have proposed is right for us to do. 15 And I took the heads of your tribes, wise men and knowledgeable men, and appointed them chiefs over you, captains of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, and officers of your tribes. 16 And I instructed your judges at that time, saying: Hear the disputes between your brothers, and judge fairly between a man and his brother, or the foreigner. 17 You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear small matters as well as great ones; and do not be afraid of anyone, for judgment belongs to the Lord; and bring any matter too difficult for you to me, and I will hear it; 18 and I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.

The Scouts and Israel’s Rebellion

19 And we departed from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrifying desert which you saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us, and we came to Petra-Geah. 20 And I said: You have come to the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord our God will give to us. 21 See, the Lord your God has set the land before you: go up and take possession of it, as the Lord the God of your fathers has commanded you; do not be afraid or discouraged. 22 And all of you came to me and said: We will send men before us, to explore the land for us, and bring us word about the way to go up to it, and to what cities we shall come. 23 And the proposal seemed good to me, and I took from you twelve men, one man for a tribe. 24 And they turned and went up to the mountain, and came to the brook of Eshcol, and explored it. 25 And they took in their hands some of the produce of the land and brought it to us, and reported back to us, saying: The land which the Lord will give us is good. 26 But you were not willing to go up, but were rebellious against the Memra of the Lord your God, 27 and complained in your tents, and said: Because the Lord has hated us, He has brought us from the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. 28 Where are we to go? Our brothers have discouraged us, saying: The people are greater and stronger than we are; the cities are vast, and walled to the height of heaven, and we saw there also the sons of the giants. 29 But I said to you: Do not be discouraged; do not fear them; 30 the Memra of the Lord, who goes before you, will fight for you,⁠a according to all that He did for you in Egypt in your sight; 31 and in the wilderness, where you have seen that the Lord your God carries you, as a man carries his child, in all the way you have journeyed until you came to this place. 32 But in this thing you did not believe in the Memra of the Lord your God, 33 who went before you in the way to find each place for you to camp on your journeys, in the pillar of fire by night to show you in which way to go, and in the pillar of the cloud by day.

Judgment in the Wilderness

34 But the voice of your words was heard before the Lord, and He was angry, and swore, saying: 35 Not one man of this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to your fathers, 36 except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and I will give to him the land on which he has walked, and to his children, because he has been faithful in reverence for the Lord. 37 The Lord was also displeased with me because of you, saying: You too are not to go in there; 38 Joshua son of Nun, who stands before you, shall enter there; strengthen him, for he is to give Israel its inheritance; 39 but your little ones, who you said would be taken captive, your children, who today do not know good and evil, they shall enter it, I will give it to them, and they shall possess it; 40 but you, turn, and go into the wilderness by the Red Sea.

The Failed Attack

41 Then you answered, and said: We have sinned before the Lord; we will go up and wage war according to all that the Lord our God commanded; and each of you fastened on his weapons for battle, and began to go up to the mountain. 42 But the Lord said to me: Tell them, You shall not go up, neither wage war; for My Shekinah is not among you, or you will be crushed by your enemies. 43 And I told you, but you did not listen, but rebelled against the Memra of the Lord, and dared, and went up to the mountain; 44 but the Amorites who lived in that mountain came out against you, and pursued you as bees swarm, and struck you in Seir to Hormah. 45 And you returned, and wept before the Lord; but the Lord would not receive your prayer, nor listen to your words; 46 and you stayed in Petra many days, for the time you remained there.

The Journey Past Edom, Moab, and Ammon

1 And we turned, and journeyed to the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, as the Lord had told us; and we went around the mountain of Seir many days. 2 And the Lord spoke to me, saying: 3 You have gone around this mountain long enough: turn north; 4 and command the people, saying: You are going through the territory of your relatives, the sons of Esau, who dwell in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Be very careful, 5 do not quarrel with them; for I will not give you of their land, not even enough to set your foot on; for I have given Mount Seir to Esau as his inheritance. 6 You shall buy food from them with silver, so that you may eat; and water with silver, so that you may drink; 7 for the Lord your God has blessed you in all the works of your hands; He has given you enough for your needs in your going about in this great wilderness; these forty years the Memra of the Lord your God has been your helper, you have not lacked anything. 8 And we passed by from our relatives, the sons of Esau, who lived in Seir, by the way of the plain from Elath, and from Ezion-geber; and turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab. 9 And the Lord said to me, Do not harass the Moabites, or provoke them to war; for I will not give you any of their land to inherit, for I have given Lehayat to the children of Lot for an inheritance. 10 The Emethanee formerly lived in it; a people great and many, and strong as the giants. 11 They were regarded as giants, and they were like giants; but the Moabites called them Emethanee. 12 The Horites formerly lived in Seir; but the sons of Esau drove them out, and destroyed them, and lived in their places, as Israel did in the land of his inheritance which the Lord gave to them. 13 Now set out, and cross the stream of Zered. And we passed over the stream of Zered. 14 And the days in which we were journeying from Petra-Geah until we crossed the stream of Zered were thirty-eight years, until the entire generation of soldiers in the camp had died, as the Lord had sworn to them. 15 For the plague from before the Lord was upon them to destroy them from among the army until they had perished. 16 When all the soldiers had perished, and had died from among the people, 17 the Lord spoke with me, saying: 18 You are today to pass by Lehayat, the frontier of Moab. 19 But when you come near opposite the sons of Ammon, do not harass them or provoke them to war; for I have not given to you of the land of the sons of Ammon any inheritance; for I have given it to the children of Lot to inherit. 20 That also was regarded as a land of giants; giants formerly lived in it, and the Ammonites called them Hashbanee; 21 a people great and many, and strong as giants, but the Lord destroyed them before them, and cast them out, and they lived in their places. 22 As did the sons of Esau who lived in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them, and drove them out, and they have lived in their places to this day. 23 And the Cappadocians, who came from Cappadocia, destroyed the Avvim who lived in villages as far as Gaza, and settled in their place.

Victory over Sihon

24 Set out, move on, and cross the river of Arnon: look, I have delivered into your hand Sihon, king of Heshbon, the Amorite, and his land; begin to drive him out, and prepare for battle with him. 25 Today I will begin to put dread of you and fear of you on all the peoples under heaven, who shall hear your reputation, and tremble before you. 26 And I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, 27 May I pass through your land by the road? I will go by the road, nor turn to the right or the left: 28 you shall sell me food for silver, and I will eat; and give me water for silver, and I will drink; I will only go through on foot: 29 as the sons of Esau who dwell in Seir, and the Moabites who dwell in Lehayat, did to me, until I pass over Jordan to the land which the Lord our God shall give to us. 30 But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing to permit us to pass through his territory; for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and strengthened his heart, so that He might deliver him into your hand, as He has done today. 31 And the Lord said to me, See, I have begun to deliver to you Sihon and his country; begin to drive him out, so that you may inherit his land. 32 And Sihon came out to meet us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz; 33 and the Memra of the Lord our God delivered him up before us, and we struck him, and his sons, and all his people. 34 And we subdued all his cities at that time, and destroyed all the towns, and the men, women, and children, and left none to escape. 35 We kept only the cattle and the goods captured from the cities we took. 36 From Aroer which is on the bank of the river of Arnon, and the city that is by the river, as far as Gilead, there was no city too strong for us; for the Lord our God delivered all before us. 37 Only to the land of the sons of Ammon you did not come near, nor to all the side of the river Jabbok, nor the cities of the mountain, or any place the Lord our God had forbidden us to enter.

Victory over Og

1 And we turned, and went up the way of Bashan; and Og king of Bashan came out to meet us, he and all his people, to give battle at Edrei. 2 And the Lord said to me, Do not fear him; for I have delivered him into your hand, with all his people and his land; and you shall do to him as you have done to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon. 3 And the Lord our God delivered Og the king of Bashan into our hand with all his people, and we struck him until not one survivor escaped. 4 And we subdued all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we did not take from them, sixty cities, all the region of the territory of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5 All those strong cities were fortified with gates and bars, besides very many unwalled towns. 6 But we destroyed them as we did Sihon king of Heshbon: we destroyed in all the cities the men, women, and children; 7 but we kept all the cattle and the goods captured from the cities. 8 And we took at that time from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites, the country on this side of Jordan, from the river of Arnon to the mountain of Hermon. 9 The Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, but the Amorites call it the Mount of Snow. 10 All the cities of the plain, all Gilead, and all Bashan, to Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 11 For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Look, his bed was a bed of iron: is it not in Rabbah of the children of Ammon, nine cubits long and four cubits wide, in the cubit of the king?

The Land East of the Jordan

12 And their land which we took into possession at that time, from Aroer, upon the river Arnon, and half Mount Gilead, and the cities of it, I have given to the tribe of Reuben, and to the tribe of Gad. 13 And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I have given to the half tribe of Manasseh; all the surrounding country, even all Bashan, which was called the Land of the Giants. 14 Jair son of Manasseh took all the territory of Trachonitis, to the border of Geshur and Epicoerus, and called it after his name, Bashan Havvoth-jair, to this day. 15 And I gave Gilead to Machir. 16 And to the tribe of Reuben, and of Gad, I have given from Gilead to the river of Arnon to the middle of the river and its border, to the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon. 17 And the plain, and the Jordan, and the border of it, from Gennesaret to the Sea of the Plain, the Dead Sea, under the slope of the height, eastward. 18 And I instructed you at that time, saying: The Lord your God has given you this land to possess it; you shall pass over armed before your brothers the sons of Israel, all armed for the army. 19 Only your wives, and little ones, and your cattle, for I know you have much cattle, shall stay in your cities which I have given you, 20 until the Lord has given rest to your brothers as well as to you, and they also possess the land which the Lord your God has given to them on the other side of Jordan: and you shall each return to your inheritance which I have given you.

Joshua’s Commission and Moses’ Plea

21 And I instructed Joshua at that time, saying: Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings; the Lord shall do the same to all the kingdoms to which you are going over. 22 Do not fear them, for the Memra of the Lord your God will fight for you. 23 And I prayed before the Lord at that time, saying: 24 Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand; for You are God, whose Shekinah is in the heavens above, and You rule in the earth, and no one can equal Your greatness or Your might. 25 Let me, please, go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that good mountain, and the place of the sanctuary. 26 But the Lord was displeased with me on your account, and He did not hear me; but said to me, It is enough for you; do not speak before Me about this matter again: 27 go up to the summit of the height, and lift up your eyes to the west, the north, the south, and the east, and see with your eyes; for you shall not pass over this Jordan. 28 But instruct Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and put them in possession of the land which you will see. 29 And we stayed in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

Keeping God’s Commandments

1 And now, Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am to teach you to do, so that you may live, and go in to inherit the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you. 2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take anything away from it, to keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. 3 Your eyes have seen what the Lord has done with the worshipers of Baal-peor; for all the men who went after Baal-peor the Lord your God has destroyed from among you. 4 But you who have held fast to reverence for the Lord your God, are alive all of you today. 5 Look, I have taught you statutes and judgments, as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land to which you go to possess it. 6 And observe, and perform; for this is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations who will hear all these statutes, and say, Certainly this great people is a wise and understanding people. 7 For what great nation has God so near to it to listen to their prayer in the time of their distress, as the Lord our God is whenever we pray before Him? 8 Or what great nation has statutes and judgments so just as all this law which I set before you today?

Horeb and the Prohibition of Idolatry

9 Only be careful and guard yourself diligently, all the days of your life, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen, or let them leave your heart. But make them known to your children, and to your children's children, 10 Remember the day when you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, Gather the people together before Me, and I will make them hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me all the days which they live on the earth, and may teach their children. 11 And you came near, and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the height of the heavens, in darkness, clouds, and shadow. 12 And the Lord spoke with you from the middle of the fire; you heard a voice of words, but you saw no likeness; there was only the Voice. 13 And He proclaimed to you His covenant which He commanded you to do, namely the Ten Words; and He wrote them upon two stone tablets. 14 And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments for you to perform in the land where you pass over to possess it. 15 But guard yourselves carefully; for you saw no likeness in the day that the Lord spoke with you from the middle of the fire; 16 so that you do not corrupt yourselves and make for yourselves an image, or the likeness of any form, the likeness of male or female, 17 of any animal on the ground, or of any bird which flies in the air of the expanse of the skies, 18 of any reptile of the earth, or any fish of the waters, under the earth; 19 and do not lift your eyes to the heavens, and see the sun, or moon and stars, all the array of the heavens, and go astray and worship them, and serve them, which the Lord your God has made available to all the nations that are under the whole heavens. 20 But the Lord has drawn you near to His service, and brought you out from the iron furnace, namely from Egypt, to be His own people, as you are today. 21 But the Lord was displeased with me, on account of your words, and He swore that I should not go over Jordan, nor enter the good land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit. 22 For I must die in this land; I am not to pass over the Jordan; but you are to pass over, and inherit that good land. 23 Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He has made with you, or make an image for yourselves, the likeness of anything about which the Lord your God has commanded you. 24 For the Memra of the Lord your God is a consuming fire: He is a jealous God. 25 When you shall have fathered sons and daughters, and have grown old in the land, and you become corrupt, and make an image, the likeness of anything, or do what is evil before the Lord your God, to cause displeasure before Him; 26 I call the heavens and earth to witness today that you will surely perish from the land where you go over the Jordan to possess it: you will not live long on it, for you will be completely destroyed. 27 And the Lord will scatter you among the nations, and you will remain few in number among the nations where the Lord shall lead you. 28 And there you will serve the peoples who are worshipers of idols, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which do not see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

Return to God

29 Yet if from there you seek the fear of the Lord your God, you shall find, if you seek for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30 When you are in trouble and all these things have happened to you, at the end of days, you will turn to the fear of the Lord your God, and be obedient to His Memra, 31 because the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

The One God of Israel

32 For ask about the ancient days that have been before you, from the day that the Lord created man upon the earth, and ask from one end of the heavens to the other, whether anything so great as this has ever happened or been heard of, 33 whether a people have heard the voice of the Memra of the Lord speaking from the middle of the fire as you heard, and have lived. 34 Or has anyone seen miracles like those the Lord has performed, in being revealed to redeem to Himself a people from among a people, by miracles, signs, and wonders, and with war, and by a mighty hand and raised arm, and by great visions, according to all that the Lord your God has done for you in Egypt before your eyes. 35 This has been shown to you, so that you may know that the Lord He is God, there is none besides Him. 36 From the heavens you heard the voice of His Memra, so that He might teach you, and upon earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words from the middle of the fire. 37 And because He loved your fathers, and was pleased with their children after them, He brought you out by His Memra, by His mighty power, from Egypt, 38 to drive out nations greater and stronger than you from before you, to bring you in, to give you their land to inherit, as He has done today. 39 Know then, today, and take it to heart, that the Lord He is God, whose glory dwells in the heavens above, and who rules upon the earth beneath, and that there is none but He; 40 and keep His statutes and His commandments that I teach you today, so that things may go well for you, and your sons after you, and you may live long in the land which the Lord your God gives you, forever.

Cities of Refuge

41 Then Moses separated three cities on the other side of the Jordan toward the sunrise, 42 so that anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him previously, may flee there; and that, fleeing to one of those cities, he may live: 43 Bezer, in the wilderness, in the plain land of the tribe of Reuben; Ramoth, in Gilead, of the tribe Gad; and Golan, in Bashan, of the tribe of Manasseh.

Introduction to the Law

44 And this is the law which Moses set in order before the children of Israel: 45 these are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments, which Moses spoke to the children of Israel, on their departure from Egypt; 46 on the other side of Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck when they had come out of Egypt. 47 And they took possession of his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond Jordan, toward the sunrise; 48 from Aroer, upon the bank of the river Arnon to the mountain of Sion, which is Hermon; 49 and all the plain beyond Jordan eastward to the sea of the plain at the slope of the heights.

The Covenant at Horeb

1 And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: Listen, Israel, to the statutes and judgments which I speak before you today, and learn them, and take care to follow them. 2 The Lord our God confirmed a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 The Lord did not confirm this covenant with our fathers, but with us who are here all of us living today: 4 The Lord spoke with you directly at the mountain from the middle of the fire 5 I stood between the Memra of the Lord and you, to announce to you at that time the word of the Lord; for you were afraid in the presence of the fire, and did not go up to the mountain, saying:

The Ten Commandments

6 I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery. 7 There shall not be with you another god beside Me. 8 You shall not make for yourself an image or any likeness of that which is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth; 9 you shall not worship them or serve them: for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers' guilt on rebellious children, upon the third generation and upon the fourth of those who hate Me, when the children complete the sins of their fathers; 10 but doing good to thousands of generations of those who love Me, and keep My commandments. 11 You shall not swear by the Name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not acquit him who shall swear by His Name falsely. 12 Keep the day of Shabbatha to keep it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall work, and do all your labor; 14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath before the Lord your God: you shall not perform any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your servant, your female servant, your ox, your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your foreigner who is in your gates; so that your servant and female servant may rest as well as you. 15 And remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord brought you out from there with a mighty hand and raised arm; therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. 16 Honor your father and mother, as the Lord has commanded, so that you may live long and things may go well for you in the land which the Lord your God shall give you. 17 You shall not commit murder, nor commit adultery, nor steal, nor bear false witness against your neighbor. 18 Nor shall you desire your neighbor's wife, nor covet your neighbor's house, his field, or his servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.

Moses Mediates for the People

19 The Lord spoke these words with all your congregation at the mountain, from the middle of the fire, the clouds and the darkness, with a great voice that has not ceased. And He wrote them upon two stone tablets, and gave them to me. 20 But it was, when you heard the voice from the middle of the fire and darkness, the mountain burning with fire, all the chiefs of your tribes and your elders drew near to me; 21 and you said, Look, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard the voice of His Memra out of the middle of the fire; today we have seen that the Lord speaks with a man, and he lives. 22 But now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us: if we go on to hear the voice of the Memra of the Lord our God, we shall die. 23 For who is there of all flesh who can hear the voice of the Memra of the Living God speaking from the middle of fire in the way that we have, and can live? 24 Go near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say, and speak with us all that the Lord our God shall speak with you, and we will listen and will do. 25 And the voice of your words was heard before the Lord when you spoke with me, and the Lord said to me, The voice of the words of this people which they have spoken with you is heard before Me; all the words they have spoken are right. 26 If only they would have such a heart to fear Me and keep all My commandments always, so that things may go well for them and their children forever. 27 Go, and say to them, Return to your tents. 28 But you, stand here before Me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I will give them to possess it. 29 And you shall take care to do as the Lord your God has commanded you, nor turn to the right hand or to the left. 30 You shall walk in every way the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and things may go well for you, and you may live long in the land which you are to inherit.

Love for God

1 And this is the commandment, these are the statutes and the judgments, which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you to perform in the land to which you go over to possess it, 2 so that you may fear before the Lord your God, and keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you; you, your sons, and your sons' sons, all the days of your life, that you may live long. 3 And you, Israel, shall receive, and keep, and perform, so that things may go well for you, and you may increase greatly, as the Lord God of your fathers has said to you, in the land which produces milk and honey. 4 Listen, Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: 5 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your wealth.⁠a 6 And these words that I command you today shall be upon your heart. 7 And you shall teach them to your children, and talk of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you travel, and when you lie down and when you get up. 8 And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for tephillin between your eyes; 9 and you shall write them upon the doorposts, and affix them to the lintels of your house, and upon your gates.

Remembering God in the Land

10 And it shall be, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which He promised to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you great and fine cities which you did not build, 11 and houses full of goods that you did not fill, and cisterns dug out which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you have eaten and are full; 12 be careful not to forget the fear of the Lord who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery. 13 You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve before Him, and swear by His Name. 14 You shall not go after the idols of the Gentiles, the idols of the peoples who surround you 15 for the Lord your God is a jealous God, His Shekinah dwells among you, otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will destroy you from the face of the earth. 16 You shall not test the Lord your God as you tested Him in the testing: 17 you shall carefully keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, and His statutes He has commanded you, 18 and do what is right and good before the Lord, so that things may go well for you, and you may enter in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to your fathers 19 to defeat all your enemies before you, as He has said.

Teaching the Children

20 When your son asks you in the future, saying, What are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments, which the Lord our God has commanded you? 21 then you shall say, We were servants to Pharaoh in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, 22 and performed great and terrible miracles against Pharaoh, and all the men of his house, before our eyes; 23 and He brought us out from there, to bring us in, to give us the land which He swore to our fathers. 24 And the Lord commanded us to perform all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, so that things may always go well for us and He may keep us alive, as we are today. 25 And it shall be our righteousness to take care to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.

A Chosen People

1 When the Lord your God shall bring you into the land into which you go to possess it, and cast out many peoples from before you, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations, greater and mightier than you, 2 and shall deliver them up before you; then you shall strike and completely destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. 3 Neither shall you intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, nor take his daughter for your son. 4 For they will cause your son to go astray from serving Me, and they will worship the idols of the Gentiles, and the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will destroy you quickly. 5 But this is what you shall do to them: you shall pull down their altars, break their pillars in pieces, cut down their sacred poles, and burn their images with fire. 6 For you are a people consecrated before the Lord your God, the Lord your God has chosen you as His own beloved people above all peoples on the face of the earth. 7 The Lord did not choose and love you because you were more numerous than any other people, for you were smaller than any of the peoples; 8 but because the Lord had mercy on you and kept the covenant He swore to your fathers, the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the place of slavery, out of the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. 9 Know, then, that the Lord your God, He is God, a faithful God, keeping covenant and mercy for those who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations, 10 but repaying those who hate Him the good which they have done before Him in their lives, to destroy them. He does not delay to do good to His enemies for the good they may have done before Him in their lives, to repay them. 11 You shall therefore observe the commandments, statutes, and judgments, which I command you today, to do them.

The Blessings of Obedience

12 And it shall be that because you will have obeyed these judgments, and have observed and performed them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. 13 And He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you, and will bless the offspring of your womb, the fruit of your land, your grain, wine, and oil, the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep, on the land which He swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be among you a barren male or a barren female, neither among your cattle. 15 And the Lord your God will remove from you all diseases, and all the plagues of Egypt; the evil things that you know He will not lay upon you, but will put them on all that hate you. 16 And you shall destroy all the peoples that the Lord your God will give up to you; your eye shall not have pity upon them, nor shall you serve their idols, for that will be a stumbling block to you.

Do Not Fear the Nations

17 If you say in your heart, These nations are greater than I am: how can I drive them out? 18 you shall not be afraid of them; you shall always remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt; 19 the great miracles which your eye saw, and the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and raised arm, by which the Lord your God led you out; the Lord your God shall do the same to all the nations before whom you are afraid. 20 And moreover, the Lord your God will stir up the hornet among them, until those who remain and who hid themselves from before you have perished. 21 You shall not be terrified of them; for the Lord your God dwells among you, the great and awe-inspiring God. 22 And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; for you may not destroy them all at once, or the wild animals may multiply against you. 23 Yet the Lord your God will deliver them up before you, and destroy them with a great destruction, until they are destroyed; 24 and He will deliver their kings into your hand, and destroy their names from under the heavens, and not a man will stand before you until you have destroyed them. 25 The images of their idols you shall burn with fire; you shall not desire the silver or the gold upon them, or take it for yourself, or it will lead you into sin, for it is an abomination before the Lord your God. 26 Nor shall you bring what is abominable into your house, or you will be condemned to destruction like it; but you shall utterly detest and reject it, for it is condemned to destruction.

The Wilderness and the Good Land

1 Every commandment that I command you today, you shall take care to do, so that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord promised to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember all the way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, so that He might humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not: 3 and He humbled you, and let you hunger, and fed you with the manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; so that He might teach you that a person is not sustained by bread alone, but lives by every word that comes from before the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not fade away from you, and your shoes did not wear out these forty years; 5 and know in your heart, that as a man instructs his son, so the Lord your God instructs you. 6 Keep then the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in the ways which are right before Him, to fear Him 7 for the Lord your God brings you into the good land; a land streaming with brooks of water, with springs, and deep waters gushing from valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, vines, figs, and pomegranates; a land of olives yielding oil, and which produces honey; 9 a land where, without poverty, you may eat bread, and lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may mine copper: 10 and you shall eat and be satisfied, and shall bless the Lord your God in the good land.

God as the Source of Wealth

11 Be careful not to forget the fear of the Lord your God, in not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes, which I command you today. 12 When you have eaten and are full, and have built fine houses and lived in them, 13 and when your oxen and sheep have multiplied to you, and silver and gold have increased, and whatever you have increases, 14 do not become proud and forget the fear of the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery; 15 who led you through the great and terrible desert, the place of burning serpents and scorpions, the parched land, where there is no water, who brought out water for you from the hard rock; 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, so that He might humble you, and test you, to benefit you in the end. 17 And do not say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have acquired this wealth for me: 18 but remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to acquire riches, so that He may confirm his covenant which He swore to your fathers, as He has done today. 19 But it will be that if you forget the fear of the Lord your God, and walk after the idols of the Gentiles to serve and worship them, I testify against you today that you will certainly perish. 20 You shall perish like the nations the Lord destroys before you, because you would not obey the Memra of the Lord your God.

The Land Is Given without Merit

1 Listen, Israel: you are about to pass over the Jordan, to enter, to drive out nations greater and stronger than you, and take possession of cities, great and fortified to the height of heaven; 2 a people great and mighty, the sons of the giants whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of the giants? 3 But know today that the Memra of the Lord your God, is the One who goes before you, He who is a burning fire, He will destroy them, He will break them down before you, and you will soon drive them out, as the Lord has told you. 4 You shall therefore not say in your heart when the Lord your God has broken them before you, saying: The Lord has brought me in because of my righteousness to inherit this land; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord drives them out before you. 5 You do not enter to possess their land because of your righteousness or integrity, but for the guilt of these nations the Lord your God drives them out before you, and so that He may confirm the word which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6 Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. 7 Remember, and do not forget, how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the wilderness; from the day that you came out from the land of Egypt until you have come to this place, you have been rebellious before the Lord.

The Golden Calf

8 And in Horeb itself you provoked the Lord, and aroused the Lord's anger to destroy you. 9 When I had gone up to the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you, and I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights—I ate no bread, I drank no water— 10 And the Lord gave to me the two stone tablets, written upon by the finger of the Lord, according to all the words which the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain from the middle of the fire, on the day of the assembly. 11 It was at the end of forty days and nights, when the Lord gave to me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant, 12 that the Lord said to me, Get up, go down quickly from here; for your people whom I brought out from Egypt are corrupted; they have soon turned from the way that I commanded them, and have made for themselves a cast-metal image. 13 And the Lord spoke to me, saying: This people is known before Me, and, look, it is a stubborn people. 14 Stop praying before Me, and I will destroy them, and blot out their name from under the heavens, and I will make you into a nation stronger and greater than they. 15 And I turned and descended from the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were upon my two hands. 16 And I looked, and, look, you had sinned before the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves a cast-metal calf; you had turned quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. 17 And I took the two tablets, and threw them from my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before the Lord as at the first, forty days and forty nights, I ate no bread and drank no water, for all your sins which you sinned to do evil before the Lord, to provoke His anger; 19 for I was afraid before the anger and indignation with which the Lord was angry against you to destroy you; but the Lord listened to my prayer on that day also. 20 And the Lord was greatly displeased with Aaron to destroy him; but I prayed for Aaron also at that time. 21 And I took the calf you had sinfully made and burned it in fire, and ground it fine until it was like powder, and I threw the dust of it into the stream that descended from the mountain. 22 And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you were rebellious before the Lord; 23 and when the Lord sent you from Petra-Geah, saying: Go up and possess the land I have given, then you rebelled against the decree of the Memra of the Lord your God, and would not believe Him, nor be obedient to His Memra. 24 You have been rebellious before the Lord from the day that I have known you;

Moses Intercedes for Israel

25 but I fell down before the Lord the forty days and the forty nights that I was prostrate, for the Lord had spoken to destroy you. 26 And I prayed before the Lord, and said: Lord God, do not destroy Your people, and Your inheritance, which You have redeemed by Your power, and brought out from Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not regard the stubbornness of this people, nor their wickedness, nor their sin: 28 so that the inhabitants of the land from where You have led us will not say: Because there was no power before the Lord to bring them into the land which He had told them of, or because He hated them, He led them out to kill them in the wilderness. 29 But they are Your people, and Your inheritance, which you have led out with Your great power and Your raised arm.

New Tablets of the Covenant

1 At that time the Lord said to me: Cut for yourself two stone tablets like the first, and come up before Me on the mountain, and make for yourself an ark of wood; 2 and I will write upon the tablets the words that were upon the first tablets which you broke, and you shall put them into the ark. 3 And I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two stone tablets like the first, and went up to the mountain, and the two tablets were in my hand; 4 and He wrote upon the tablets according to the original writing, the Ten Words which the Lord spoke with you on the mountain from the middle of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. 5 And I returned and descended from the mountain, and put the tablets into the ark which I had made, and they are there, as the Lord commanded me. 6 And the children of Israel set out from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah; there Aaron died, and was buried there, and Eleazar his son served as priest in his place. 7 From there they journeyed to Gudgod, and from Gudgod to Jotbathah, a land flowing with streams of water. 8 At that time the Lord had set apart the tribe of Levi, to carry the ark of the Lord's covenant, to stand before the Lord to serve Him, and to bless in His Name, to this day. 9 Therefore, Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers; the gifts which the Lord shall give him are his inheritance, as the Lord your God has told him. 10 And I stood on the mountain as in the former days, forty days and nights; and the Lord received my prayer at that time also, that He would not destroy you. 11 And the Lord said to me: Get up and go ahead of the people, so that they may be brought in to possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

What God Requires

12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear before the Lord your God, to walk in all the ways that are right before Him, and to love Him, and to serve before the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul; 13 to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes which I command you today, so that things may go well for you? 14 Look, the heavens and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, as do the earth and all it contains; 15 only the Lord chose your fathers to love them, and He has been pleased with their children after them, in you, above all people, as you are today. 16 Remove, therefore, the foolishness of your hearts, and stop being stubborn; 17 for the Lord your God is the God of judges, and the Lord of kings, the Great God, mighty and awe-inspiring, who shows no partiality, nor does He accept a bribe. 18 He executes judgment for the orphan and the widow, and has pity on the foreigner to give him food and clothing. 19 So love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve before Him; to His fear you shall keep close, and shall swear by His Name; 21 He is your glory, and He is your God, who has done for you these vast and mighty acts which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt as seventy people, and now the Lord your God has set you as the stars of the heavens in number.

Remembering God’s Works

1 And you shall love the Lord your God, and carefully keep His word, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. 2 And you know today what your children have not known or seen, the discipline of the Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand and raised arm, 3 His miracles, and His works which He did in Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4 and what He did to the army of the Egyptians, to their horses and their chariots, when He made the waters of the Red Sea overwhelm them as they followed after you, and the Lord destroyed them to this day; 5 and what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place; 6 and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up with the men of their house, their tents, and all the possessions they had, in the middle of all Israel; 7 for your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which He has done. 8 You shall observe all the commandments which I command you today, so that you may be strengthened, and go in and possess the land you are crossing over to inherit, 9 and may live long in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them and their children, a land producing milk and honey;

The Land and Its Rain

10 for the land into which you are going to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt from which you have come out, where you sowed your seed, and watered it with your feet as a vegetable garden; 11 but the land you are crossing over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from heaven; 12 a land which the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year. 13 And it shall be, if you will be diligently obedient to My commandments which I command you today to love the Lord your God, and to serve before Him with all your heart, and with all your soul, 14 I will give you the rain of your land in its season, the early and the late rains; and you shall gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; 15 and I will give grass in your field for your cattle, and you shall eat and be satisfied. 16 Be careful that your heart is not deceived, and you turn aside to serve the gods of the Gentiles and worship them; 17 and the Lord's anger will be aroused against you, and He will shut the skies so that there is no rain, and the earth will yield no crops, and you perish soon from the good land which the Lord will give you: 18 but lay these my words upon your heart, and upon your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, and let them be for tephillin between your eyes; 19 and teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you travel, when you lie down, and when you get up; 20 and write them upon the posts, and fix them to the entrance of your house, and upon your gates; 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth. 22 For if you surely keep all this commandment that I command you to perform it, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all the ways that are right before Him, and keep close to His fear, 23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, so that you may possess the lands of nations greater and stronger than yourselves. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours, from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, to the farthest sea shall be your border. 25 No one shall stand before you; for the Lord your God will put the fear and dread of you throughout all the land that you tread upon, as the Lord has said to you.

Blessing and Curse

26 Look, I set before you today blessings and curses: 27 blessings, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today; 28 but curses, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, and turn aside from the way that I teach you today, to go after the idols of the peoples whom you have not known. 29 And it shall be, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, you shall set the blessings upon the Mount of Gerizim, and the curses upon the Mountain of Ebal. 30 Are they not beyond Jordan, beyond the road toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites, who live in the plains opposite Gilgal, by the side of the plain of Moreh? 31 For you are to pass over the Jordan to enter in to inherit the land which the Lord your God will give you; and you will possess, and dwell in it. 32 And you shall take care to do all the statutes and judgments which I have set before you today.

The Chosen Place of Worship

1 These are the commandments and judgments you shall take care to follow in the land that the Lord the God of your fathers will give to you to inherit all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall completely destroy all the places in which the peoples whose lands you will inherit have served their idols, upon the high mountains, and the hills, and under every leafy tree. 3 And you shall lay their altars in ruin, break their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, cut the images of their idols in pieces, and blot out their names from that place. 4 You shall not worship in that way before the Lord your God; 5 but, to the place which the Lord your God will choose that His Shekinah may dwell there, you shall seek the house of His Shekinah, and come there; 6 And bring your burnt offerings, your holy sacrifices, your tithes, and the separations of your hands, your vows and freewill gifts, and the firstborn of your oxen and sheep. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and rejoice in all that you have set your hand to, you and your households, because the Lord your God has blessed you. 8 You shall not do as we are doing here today, every man as seems right in his own eyes; 9 for you have not come yet to the place of rest, and to the inheritance which the Lord your God will give you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit, and He has given you rest from all your enemies around, and you dwell in safety, 11 then there will be a Place which the Lord your God will choose, to make His Shekinah dwell there; there you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings and holy sacrifices, your tithes and the separations of your hands, and all the choice things of your vows which you may vow before the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and daughters, your servants and female servants, and the Levite who is among you, for he has no part or inheritance with you. 13 Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; 14 but in the Place which the Lord will choose out of one of your tribes you shall offer your sacrifices, and there do all that I command you.

Slaughter and the Eating of Meat

15 Yet you may slaughter animals and eat meat wherever you wish, according to the blessing of the Lord your God, which He will give you in all your cities; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as the meat of the gazelle and the deer. 16 But you may not eat blood; you shall pour it upon the ground like water. 17 It is not lawful for you to eat in your cities of the tithe of your grain, wine, or oil, or the firstborn of your bulls or your sheep, or of any vow which you have devoted, or of your freewill offerings, or separations of your hands; 18 but you shall eat it before the Lord your God, in the place which the Lord your God will choose; you and your son and daughter, your servant and female servant, and the Levite who is in your cities; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you set your hand to. 19 Be careful not to neglect the Levite all your days upon your land. 20 When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He has said to you, and you say, I will eat meat, when you wish to eat meat, you may eat as much meat as you desire. 21 If the place which the Lord your God will choose for His Shekinah to dwell there, is too far from you, you may slaughter some of your oxen and sheep which the Lord will give you, as I have commanded you, and eat in your cities as much as you desire. 22 You shall eat it as you eat the meat of the gazelle and the deer, the unclean and the clean may eat it alike. 23 Only, be steadfast in not eating the blood, for blood is life, and you may not eat the life with the flesh: 24 you shall not eat it; you shall pour it like water upon the ground; 25 you shall not eat it, so that things may go well for you and your children after you, when you do that which is right before the Lord. 26 Only your consecrated things which you have, and your vows, you shall take and bring to the place that the Lord will choose; 27 and make your burnt sacrifices, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your holy sacrifices you shall pour out at the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. 28 Observe and obey all these commandments which I command you, so that things may go well with you, and with your children after you forever, when you do that which is fitting and right before the Lord your God.

Reject the Worship of Idols

29 When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations of the land where you are going to cast them out from before you, and He has driven them out, and you dwell in their land, 30 be careful not to follow their example after they have been driven out before you, and do not inquire about their idols, saying, How did these nations serve their idols? I will do the same. 31 You shall not do so before the Lord your God; for all that is abominable before the Lord, and that He hates, they have done for their idols. For even their sons and daughters they have burned in the fire.

False Prophets and Enticement to Idolatry

1 You shall carefully follow every word I command you; you shall not add to it nor take anything away from it. 2 If there arises among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives a sign or a wonder, 3 and the sign or wonder comes true, if he speaks with you, saying, Let us go after the gods of the Gentiles whom you have not known, and let us worship them; 4 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 5 You shall walk after the Lord your God; you shall fear Him, and keep His commandments, and be obedient to His Memra, and serve Him, and keep close to His fear. 6 And that prophet, or dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; for he has spoken perversions against the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, and delivered you from the place of slavery, to make you go astray from the path in which the Lord your God has commanded you to walk; and you shall remove the evildoer from among you. 7 If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife joined to you by covenant, or your friend who is as dear as your own life, tries to persuade you in secret, saying: Let us go and worship the gods of the Gentiles whom you have not known, nor your fathers, 8 gods of the nations around you, near you, or far off, from one end of the earth to the other; 9 you shall not consent to him, nor listen to his word, nor must your eye have pity on him; you shall neither show him compassion nor shield him, 10 but you shall certainly put him to death; your hand shall be the first to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people; 11 and you shall stone him with stones so that he dies, because he sought to lead you astray from the fear of the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery; 12 and all Israel will hear and be afraid, and never again do this evil thing among you.

A City That Turns to Idols

13 If you hear in one of the cities which the Lord your God will give you to dwell in, saying: 14 Men, sons of wickedness, have gone out from among you, and led away the inhabitants of their city, saying: Let us go and worship the gods of the nations which you have not known; 15 then you shall investigate, search out the facts, and inquire carefully; and, look, the report is true, and this abomination is being done among you, 16 you shall strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, and destroy it and all that is in it and its cattle by the edge of the sword; 17 And you shall gather all its captured goods together into the middle of its street, and burn the city and all its captured goods with fire entirely before the Lord your God, and it shall be a desolate heap forever, it shall be built no more; 18 and nothing of the thing condemned to destruction shall remain in your hand, so that the Lord may turn away His anger from you, and show mercy upon you, and be loving toward you, and increase you, as He swore to your fathers; 19 when you shall be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God, to observe all His commandments which I command you today, to do that which is right before the Lord your God.

A Holy People and Clean Foods

1 You are children before the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor shave the front of your head for the dead; 2 for you are to be a holy people before the Lord your God, chosen as His people more beloved than all the nations upon the face of the earth. 3 You shall not eat anything that is abominable. 4 These are the cattle that you may eat: oxen, lambs of the flock, and young goats. 5 The deer, and the antelope, the forest deer, and the wild goat, the addax, the wild ox, and the chamois; 6 and any animal that has a split hoof, and that divides the hoof into two parts, and chews the cud, among cattle, that you may eat. 7 Nevertheless, you shall not eat of those that only chew the cud, or of them that only separate the hoof into divided parts: the camel, the hare, and the hyrax, for they bring up the cud, but do not divide the hoof, they are unclean to you; 8 and the pig, because it divides the hoof, but does not chew the cud, shall be unclean to you; of their flesh you may not eat, nor touch their carcasses. 9 Of all that are in the waters these you may eat: all that have fins and scales you may eat; 10 but any fish that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; it is unclean to you. 11 You may eat any clean bird; 12 but of these you shall not eat: the eagle, bearded vulture, osprey, 13 red kite, vulture, and kite of its kind, 14 and every raven of its kind; 15 the owl, nightbird, gull, and hawk of its kind; 16 the heron, swan, and stork, 17 the cormorant, pelican, and owl; 18 the bittern and ibis of its kind; the lapwing and the bat: 19 and all winged insects are unclean to you; you shall not eat them; 20 but you may eat any winged creature that is clean. 21 You shall not eat of anything that dies on its own: you may give it to the uncircumcised foreigner who is in your city, and he may eat it; or you may sell it to the foreign peoples; for you are to be a holy people to the Lord your God. You shall not eat meat with milk.

Tithes for Worship and Support

22 You shall tithe all the produce of your seed, and all that your field may produce from year to year; 23 and before the Lord your God in the place which He will choose to make His Shekinah dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, wine, and oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear before the Lord your God always. 24 But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to bring it, if the journey is too far from the place which the Lord your God may choose to make His Shekinah dwell there, when the Lord your God has blessed you, 25 then you shall exchange it for silver, and bind the silver in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God will choose, 26 and shall give the silver for whatever you wish, for oxen, sheep, wine, new or old, or anything you desire, and shall eat there before the Lord your God, and rejoice, you and your household, 27 and the Levite who is in your cities; you shall not neglect him, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. 28 At the end of three years you shall bring out all the tithes of your produce in that year, and store it in your cities; 29 and the Levite, because he has no part or inheritance with you, and the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who are in your cities, shall come and eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you shall do.

The Release of Debts

1 At the end of seven years you shall make the Release, 2 and this is the rule of the Release: every creditor shall release the debt owed by his neighbor; he shall not demand payment from his neighbor or his brother, because the release is proclaimed before the Lord. 3 You may demand payment from a Gentile; but you shall release the debt your brother owes you. 4 However, there should be no poor among you, for the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God will give you for a possession to inherit. 5 Only if you will indeed be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God, and take care to do all these commandments which I command you today; 6 for the Lord your God blesses you, as He has said to you: and you shall lend to many peoples, but you shall not take a loan; and you shall rule over many peoples, but they shall not rule over you.

Generosity toward the Poor

7 If there is among you a poor man of your brothers, in one of the cities in the land which the Lord your God will give you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; 8 but you shall open your hand to him, and lend, according to the measure of his lack, of that which he may need. 9 Be careful not to have a wicked thought in your heart, saying, The year of release draws near, and you look grudgingly at your poor brother, and you refuse to give to him, and he cries out against you before the Lord, and you become guilty. 10 You shall give generously to him, and you shall not be grudging when you give to him: because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your works, and in all you put your hand to. 11 For the poor will always be in your land; therefore I command you, saying, You shall truly open your hand to your brother, to your afflicted, and to your poor in your land.

The Release of Servants

12 If your brother, a son of Israel, or a daughter of Israel, is sold to you, and has served you six years, in the seventh year let him go, free, from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not send him away empty. 14 But you shall provide for him from your flock, and your threshing floor, and your winepress, and give to him from what the Lord your God has blessed you with. 15 And you shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God set you free: therefore I command you this thing today. 16 But if he says to you, I will not leave you, because he loves you, and your household, and because he fares well with you, 17 then you shall take an awl, put it through his ear, and into the door, and he shall be a servant to you permanently. And you shall do the same for your female servant. 18 Do not consider it a hardship when you send him from you to be free, for he has been worth twice as much as a hired worker, serving you six years; and the Lord your God will bless you in all that you shall do.

Firstborn Animals

19 Every firstborn male which comes of your cattle or your sheep, you shall consecrate before the Lord your God: you shall not work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. 20 You shall eat it before the Lord your God from year to year in the place which the Lord will choose, you and your household. 21 And if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it before the Lord your God: 22 you may eat it in your cities, unclean and clean people alike may eat it, as the antelope and the deer. 23 Only you shall not eat the blood, but pour it out upon the ground like water.

Passover and the Pilgrimage Festivals

1 Observe the month of Abiba, and perform the Passover before the Lord your God; for in the month of Abiba the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt, and performed signs for you in the night. 2 And you shall sacrifice the Passover before the Lord your God, with the young lambs of your flock, and with holy sacrifices from your herd, in the place which the Lord will choose to make His Shekinah dwell there. 3 You shall not eat leaven with it. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of humiliation; for you came out in haste of the land of Egypt: so that you may remember the day of your coming from the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4 And there shall not be leaven seen with you within all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the flesh of that which you did sacrifice in the evening of the first day remain until the morning. 5 You are not permitted to sacrifice the Passover in any one of your cities which the Lord your God will give you; 6 but in the place which the Lord your God will approve to make His Shekinah dwell, there you shall sacrifice the Passover, in the evening, at the setting of the sun; the time of your coming out of Egypt. 7 And you shall cook and eat it in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, and in the morning turn and go to your tent. 8 Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day gather together before the Lord your God: you shall do no work. 9 Count seven weeks for yourself from the beginning of the harvest; when the omer of the lifted offering is reaped with the sickle, you shall begin to count the seven weeks. 10 And you shall perform the Festival of Weeks before the Lord your God, with a tribute of the freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God has blessed you. 11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is in your cities, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who are among you, in the place which the Lord your God will choose to make His Shekinah dwell there. 12 And you shall remember that you were a servant in Egypt, and keep and perform these statutes. 13 You shall celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days, when you have gathered in from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. 14 And you shall rejoice in your feast, you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your female servant, the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, who are in your cities. 15 For seven days you shall hold the festival before the Lord your God in the place the Lord shall choose, because the Lord your God has blessed you in all your produce, and in all the work of your hands, and therefore you shall rejoice. 16 Three times in the year all your males are to appear before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose; at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed; 17 but every man with the gift of his hand, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you.

Judges and Pure Worship

18 You shall appoint judges and officers for yourselves in all your cities which the Lord your God will give you throughout your tribes, and they shall judge the people with fair judgment. 19 You shall not pervert judgment, nor show partiality, nor accept a bribe; for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and corrupts right words. 20 You shall follow that which is surely true, so that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God will give you. 21 You shall not plant for yourself a sacred pole, nor any tree beside the altar of the Lord your God that you make for yourself, 22 nor erect a pillar which the Lord your God hates.

Offenses against the Covenant

1 You shall not sacrifice before the Lord your God a bull or ram which has a blemish in it, nor any other defect; for that is an abomination before the Lord your God. 2 If, in any one of the cities which the Lord your God will give you, there is found a man or woman who has done evil before the Lord your God in transgressing his covenant, 3 and going to do service to the idols of the Gentiles, or to the sun, moon, or all the host of the heavens, in worshiping them, which I have not commanded; 4 and you are told, and you have heard; you shall investigate carefully, and if the report is true that this abomination has been done in Israel, 5 you shall bring out that man or woman to the gate of your court, and stone them with stones so that they die. 6 The person guilty of a capital offense shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses: he shall not die on the testimony of one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be upon him first to kill him, and the hands of all the people afterward; and you shall remove the evildoer from among you.

The Authority of Priests and Judges

8 If a matter for judgment is too difficult for you, between one case of bloodshed and another, between one legal case and another, or between one leprous affliction and another, they being matters of divided judgment in your cities, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God shall choose, 9 and come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge who may be in those days, and inquire; and they will show you the legal ruling. 10 And you shall do according to the word of the sentence which they will show you from the place which the Lord will choose, and you shall take care to do according to all that they will teach you. 11 Upon the word of the law which they teach you, and upon the judgment they tell you, you shall act; you shall not swerve from the word they will have shown you, to the right or the left. 12 And the man who does wickedly by refusing to obey the priest who stands there to serve before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die; and you shall remove the evildoer from Israel. 13 And all the people will hear and be afraid, and do wickedly no more.

The King and the Law

14 When you have come into the land which the Lord your God will give you, and possess and dwell in it, and you may say, I will appoint a king over me, like the nations who are around me; 15 you may truly appoint over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose, from among your brothers you shall appoint the king over you. You are not permitted to appoint a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16 Only he shall not acquire many horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to acquire many horses; for the Lord has said to you, You shall no more return by that way. 17 Neither shall he take many wives for himself, so that his heart is not turned away; nor shall he increase silver and gold for himself greatly. 18 And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this Law in a scroll, from the copy kept before the priests, the Levites. 19 And he shall have it with him, to read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear before the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law, and these statutes, to perform them: 20 so that he does not exalt himself above his brothers, nor swerve from the commandments of the Lord to the right or to the left, and may live long in his kingdom, he and his sons in the middle of Israel.

The Support of Priests and Levites

1 For the priests and Levites, namely all the tribe of Levi, there shall be no part or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of the Lord and his inheritance, 2 but have no heritage among their brothers: the gifts presented to the Lord are his inheritance, as the Lord has said to him. 3 And this is what shall belong to the priests from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether bull or lamb; they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach. 4 The first of your grain, wine, and oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall set apart for him. 5 For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to serve in the Name of the Lord, he, and his sons, always. 6 And if a Levite comes from one of your cities out of all Israel, where he has lived, and comes with all his heart, to the place which the Lord will choose, 7 then he shall serve in the Name of the Lord his God with his brothers the Levites who serve there before the Lord. 8 They shall eat equal portions, besides the accustomed allotment which comes on the Sabbath, as the fathers have appointed.

Forbidden Religious Practices

9 When you have entered into the land which the Lord your God will give you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of these peoples. 10 No one shall be found among you who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, using enchantments, practicing fortune-telling or augury or witchcraft, nor a caster of spells, 11 or a consultant of pagan oracles, or a wizard, or one who questions the dead: 12 for all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord; and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. 13 You shall be perfect in the fear of the Lord your God. 14 For these nations which you shall possess listened to diviners and enchanters; the Lord has not permitted you to do so.

A Prophet Like Moses

15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers; you shall listen to him. 16 According to all that you asked before the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying: Let me not again hear the voice of the Memra of the Lord my God, and let me not see the great fire any more, or I will die. 17 And the Lord said to me, That which they have spoken is right: 18 I will raise up to them a Prophet from among them like you, and I will put My words of prophecy upon his lips, and he will speak to them all that I shall command him. 19 And the man who will not listen to My words which he will speak in My Name, My Memra will hold him accountable. 20 But a prophet who shall do wickedly in speaking in My Name a word which I had not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of the gods of the Gentiles, that prophet shall die. 21 And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? 22 When a prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, if the word does not come true and is not fulfilled, that is a word which the Lord has not spoken: you shall not be afraid of the prophet who has spoken wickedly.

Cities of Refuge

1 When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land the Lord your God will give you, and you possess it, and dwell in their cities and houses; 2 you shall set apart three cities for yourselves within your land, which the Lord your God will give you to inherit. 3 You shall prepare roads for yourselves, and divide into three parts the boundary of your land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, for any person who has killed someone to flee there. 4 And this shall be the case of the person who has killed someone who flees there so that he may live: one who has killed his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him previously. 5 As, when a man goes with his neighbor into the thicket to cut wood, and his hand with the iron is driven aside in cutting the wood, and the iron flies off from the handle and strikes his neighbor, and he is killed, he shall flee to one of these cities so that he may live; 6 otherwise the avenger of blood may pursue him in a fury, and overtake him, because the way is long, and kill him; he not being guilty of death, because he had not hated him previously. 7 Therefore, I command you, saying: You shall set apart to you three cities. 8 And when the Lord your God enlarges your border, as He swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land which He said to your fathers He would give, 9 if you will keep all this commandment which I command you today, to perform it, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in the ways that are right before Him all the days; then you shall add another three cities to those three, 10 so that innocent blood may not be shed within your land which the Lord your God will give you to inherit, and that the guilt of murder may not be upon you. 11 But if a man hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, attacks him, kills him, and flees to one of these cities, 12 then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, and he shall die. 13 Your eye shall not have pity upon him, and you shall do away with the shedding of innocent blood from Israel, so that things may go well for you.

Boundaries and Legal Testimony

14 You shall not move your neighbor's boundary marker which he has set for a limit in the inheritance which you shall possess in the land the Lord your God will give you to inherit. 15 One witness shall not stand alone against a man for any wrongdoings or sins, or any sin he may have committed; but the case shall be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 16 If a false witness stands up against a man to testify against him falsely, 17 then the two men whom the case concerns shall stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and judges who shall be in those days; 18 and the judges shall investigate carefully, and, look, he has testified falsely, and the testimony is false that he has witnessed against his brother, 19 then you shall do to him as he had planned to do to his brother, and you shall remove the evildoer from among you. 20 And the rest shall hear and be afraid, and not do any more like this evil thing among you. 21 And your eye shall not have pity: life for life; eye for eye; tooth for tooth; hand for hand; foot for foot.

Preparing for War

1 When you go out to war with your adversaries, and see horses, and chariots, and more people than you, do not be afraid of them; for your helper is the Memra of the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. 2 And it shall be when you draw near to battle, that the priest shall approach, and speak with the people, 3 and say to them, Listen, Israel: you come today to do battle with your enemies: do not lose heart, neither be afraid, or alarmed, or terrified of them; 4 for the Lord your God is the One who goes before you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. 5 And the officers shall speak before the people, saying: What man is there who has built a new house, and has not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, otherwise he may be killed in the battle, and another man dedicate it. 6 And what man has planted a vineyard, but has not begun to enjoy its ordinary use? let him go and return to his house, otherwise he may be killed in the battle, and another man begin to enjoy its use. 7 And what man has become engaged to a woman and not married her? let him go and return to his house, otherwise he may be killed in the battle, and another man marry her. 8 And the officers shall yet speak to the people, and say: What man is there who is afraid and brokenhearted? Let him return to his house, and not make his brothers lose heart as he has. 9 And it shall be, when the officers have finished speaking with the people, they shall appoint captains of the army at the head of the people.

Cities under Siege

10 When you draw near to a city to make war against it, then proclaim to it words of peace. 11 And if it accepts your offer of peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people who dwell in it shall be subject to tribute to you and serve you. 12 But if it will not make peace with you, but will have war with you, then you shall besiege it: 13 and when the Lord your God has delivered it into your hand, you may strike all the males of it by the sentence of the sword; 14 but the women, children, cattle, and all that is in the city, all the captured goods, you shall take for yourselves; and you shall eat the captured goods of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. 15 You shall do this to all cities which are far from you, but are not of the cities of these nations; 16 for of the cities of these nations which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not leave alive any breathing thing, 17 but utterly destroy them, Hittites and Amorites, Canaanites and Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded you; 18 so that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done to their idols, and you sin against the Lord your God. 19 When you lay siege to a city many days in making war against it to subdue it, you shall not destroy the trees around it, nor lift up the iron against them: for of them you may eat; you shall not cut them down, for the tree of the field is not like a man, to come against you in the siege. 20 Only a tree which you know is not for food, you may destroy and cut down; and you shall build siege works against the city which makes war with you, until you subdue it.

An Unsolved Killing

1 When in the land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit someone is found killed, lying in the field, and it is not known who has killed him, 2 then your elders and judges shall come out and measure to the cities that surround the dead man; 3 and the elders of the city that is nearest to the dead man shall take a heifer of the herd which has not been worked with, nor has pulled a load under a yoke. 4 And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to an uncultivated valley which has not been plowed or sown, and there break the heifer's neck in the field. 5 And the priests the sons of Levi shall go near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him, and to bless in the Name of the Lord, and every dispute or case of leprous disease shall be decided by their ruling; 6 and all the elders of that city which is nearest to the dead man shall wash their hands over the heifer which has been killed in the field; 7 and shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen. 8 And the priests shall say, Forgive Your people Israel whom You, Lord, have redeemed, and do not let the guilt of innocent blood be among Your people Israel. And it shall be forgiven them concerning the blood: 9 you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right before the Lord.

Captive Women and Family Rights

10 When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive; 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her, and wish to marry her; 12 then you shall bring her into your house, and she shall shave her head, and let her nails grow, 13 and take off the clothes she wore when captured, and live in your house, and mourn for her father and mother a full month; and afterward you may go to her and marry her, and she shall be your wife. 14 But if you are not pleased with her, then you may let her go free: you shall by no means sell her for money, nor treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her. 15 If a man has two wives, the one beloved and the other hated, and they have borne sons, the beloved one and the hated one, and the firstborn son belongs to the hated; 16 then when he distributes his inheritance to his sons, he shall not treat the beloved wife's son as firstborn in place of the hated wife's son, the actual firstborn. 17 For he shall acknowledge the hated wife's son as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all his possessions; for he is the beginning of his strength, and to him belongs the birthright. 18 If a man has a son defiant and rebellious, who will not obey the word of his father or his mother, and, though they instruct him, will not listen to them; 19 then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out before the elders of his city at the gate of the court of his place, 20 and shall say to the elders of the city, This son of ours is defiant and rebellious; he will not obey our words, he is a glutton and a drunkard: 21 then all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, so that he dies; and you shall remove the evildoer from among you, and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.

Burial after Execution

22 When a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death, and you have hanged him on a gallows; 23 his body shall not remain upon the gallows, but you shall certainly bury him on that day: for he was hanged because he had sinned before the Lord;⁠a and your land which the Lord your God has given you to inherit shall not be defiled.

Responsibilities in Daily Life

1 You shall not see your brother's ox or his lamb straying, and turn yourself aside from them; you shall surely bring them back to your brother. 2 And if your brother is not nearby, or you do not know him, then you shall bring it into your house, and it shall be with you until your brother asks for it, and then you shall restore it to him. 3 You shall do the same with his donkey, and with his garment, and with any lost thing of your brother's which you may have found; it is not lawful for you to conceal it. 4 You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen in the way, and turn yourself away from them; you shall surely lift them up for him. 5 A woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall the clothing of a man be like the clothing of a woman; for everyone who does these things is abominable before the Lord your God. 6 If you find the nest of a bird before you on the way, in any tree, or upon the ground, with young ones, or eggs, and the mother lying over the young ones, or upon the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the offspring. 7 You shall send away the mother, and take the young ones with you; so that things may go well for you, and you may live long. 8 When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet around your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it. 9 You shall not sow your vineyard with mixed seeds, or what comes from the seed which you sow, and the produce of your vineyard, will become unclean. 10 You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. 11 You shall not wear a fabric of wool and linen joined together. 12 You shall make for yourself tassels upon the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.

Accusations and Sexual Offenses

13 If a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her, and comes to dislike her, 14 and makes accusations against her or damages her reputation, and says, I took this woman and came to her, and I have not found her to be a virgin: 15 then the young woman's father and mother shall bring out the evidence of the young woman's virginity before the elders of the city, at the gate of the court of the place; 16 and the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man as his wife, and he hates her; 17 and, look, he has made accusations, saying, I have not found the virginity of your daughter; but this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity. And he shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. 18 And the elders of the city shall take that man and flog him, 19 and fine him a hundred shekels of silver, and give to the father of the young woman, because he damaged the reputation of a virgin of the house of Israel. And she shall be his wife, he is not permitted to divorce her as long as he lives. 20 But if this accusation is true, and the evidence of the young woman's virginity is not found, 21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of that city shall stone her with stones so that she dies; for she has done a shameful thing in Israel in having illicit sexual relations in her father's house, and you shall remove the evildoer from among you. 22 If a man is found having sexual relations with another man's wife, both of them shall be put to death, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; and you shall remove the evildoer from Israel. 23 If a man finds in the city a young woman, a virgin, who is betrothed to a man, and has sexual relations with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and stone them with stones so that they die; the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humiliated his neighbor's wife; and you shall remove the evildoer from among you. 25 But if a man finds the betrothed young woman in the field, and overpowers her and has sexual relations with her, then only the man who lay with her shall be put to death; 26 but to the young woman you shall not do anything; the young woman is not guilty of a capital offense; for as when a man rises up against his neighbor and kills him, this case is the same; 27 he found her in the field, the betrothed young woman cried, but there was no one to rescue her. 28 If a man finds a young woman, a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and has sexual relations with her, and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he had humiliated her, he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.

Marriage and Admission to the Congregation

1 A man shall not take his father's wife, nor violate his father's marriage bed. 2 He who is castrated or ruptured shall not be clean so as to enter into the congregation of the Lord. 3 A mamzer shall not be clean, so as to enter into the congregation of the Lord; his offspring also to the tenth generation shall not be clean, so as to enter into the congregation of the Lord. 4 An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not be clean, so as to enter into the congregation of the Lord; neither to the tenth generation shall they be clean ever to enter the congregation of the Lord; 5 because they did not meet you with bread and water in the way, when you came up from Egypt; and because they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram, upon the Euphrates, to curse you. 6 But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam, and the Lord your God turned the curses into blessings, because the Lord your God loved you. 7 You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. 8 You shall not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not detest an Egyptian, for you were a foreigner in his land. 9 The children that are born to them of the third generation shall be clean, so as to enter into the congregation of the Lord.

Keeping the Camp Clean

10 When you go out as an army against your enemies, then guard against every wicked thing. 11 If there is among you a man who is not clean, by a nocturnal emission, let him go outside the camp, let him not enter into the middle of the camp, 12 but at evening let him wash with water, and at sunset he may come into the camp. 13 And a place shall be appointed for you outside of the camp, so that you may go out there. 14 And you shall have a digging blade with your equipment, so that when you sit outside you may dig with it, and cover your excrement. 15 For the Shekinah of the Lord your God walks among your camp to save you and deliver up your enemies before you,⁠a and your camp shall be sacred, so that nothing offensive may be seen among you, or His Memra will turn away from doing you good.

Protection, Lending, and Vows

16 You shall not deliver up a slave of the Gentiles into the hand of his master, when he has escaped to you from his master; 17 he shall live with you among you in the place that he may choose in one of your cities where it may be best for him; you shall not oppress him. 18 No woman of the children of Israel may be the wife of a man who is a slave; neither shall any man of the sons of Israel marry a female slave. 19 You shall not bring the earnings of prostitution nor the price of a dog into the house of the sanctuary of the Lord your God, for any vow; for even both of them are an abomination before the Lord your God. 20 You shall not charge your brother interest; the interest of money, of grain, or of anything that produces interest. 21 From a Gentile you may take interest, but from your brother you shall not take it; for the Lord your God will bless you in all that you put your hand to in the land to which you go to possess it. 22 When you make a vow before the Lord your God, you shall not delay to fulfill it; for the Lord your God will certainly require it of you, and you would become guilty of sin. 23 Yet if you should refrain from making a vow, it will not be sin in you. 24 What has come from your lips you shall take care to fulfill; as you have vowed before the Lord your God, you shall fulfill freely what you have spoken with your lips. 25 If you come for hire into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat grapes to satisfy your hunger; but you shall not put them into your container. 26 If you come into your neighbor's ripe grain, you may pick the full heads of grain with your hand, but not use a sickle on your neighbor's grain.

Marriage, Work, and Household Protections

1 When a man has married a woman and become her husband, and she has not found favor in his eyes, because he has found something wrong in her, then he may write for her a certificate of divorce, and give it into her hand, and send her from his house. 2 And when she has departed from his house, she may go and become the wife of another man. 3 And if the later husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, and puts it into her hand, and sends her away from his house; or if the later husband who had taken her to be his wife dies, 4 the first husband who had divorced her is not permitted to marry her again after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord; and you shall not cause the land to sin, which the Lord your God gives you to inherit. 5 When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out with the army, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him; he shall be free in his house for a year, so that he may bring joy to his wife whom he has taken. 6 No man shall take as a pledge the millstones, either lower or upper; for they provide a person's livelihood. 7 If a man is found kidnapping one of his brothers from the sons of Israel, to treat him as a slave, or to sell him, that man shall be put to death, and you shall remove the evildoer from among you. 8 Be careful, in a case of leprous disease, to follow fully all that the priests, the Levites, shall teach you; as I have commanded them, you shall take care to do. 9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam, in the way when you came out of Egypt.

Loans, Wages, and Justice

10 When you have lent the use of anything to your neighbor, you shall not enter into his house to take his pledge. 11 You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you have lent shall bring out the pledge to you. 12 And if the man is poor, you shall not sleep with his pledge; 13 you shall return him his pledge at sunset, so that he may sleep in his garment, and may bless you, and it shall be righteousness before the Lord your God. 14 You shall not oppress a hired worker who is needy and poor, whether he is of your brothers, or of your foreigners who are in your land or your cities. 15 You shall pay his wages that day; you shall not let the sun go down upon it, for he is needy, and his livelihood depends on it; so that he does not cry out against you before the Lord and you become guilty of sin. 16 The fathers shall not die for the children, nor shall children die for the fathers; a man shall die for his own sin. 17 You shall not pervert the judgment of the foreigner or the orphan, nor take the garment of the widow for a pledge; 18 but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing.

Gleaning for the Poor

19 When you are gathering your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not return to take it; let it be for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go back over what you have left behind you; let it be for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. 21 When you are gathering your vineyard, you shall not glean the grapes that are left behind you; let them be for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow; 22 and remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I have commanded you to do this thing.

Justice and Punishment

1 If there is a legal dispute between men, let them bring it to the judges, so that they may decide the case; and they shall declare the innocent to be in the right, and condemn the guilty. 2 And if the guilty person is sentenced to flogging, the judge shall have him lie down and be flogged in his presence, in number according to the seriousness of his guilt. 3 Forty times he may strike him, not more, otherwise, by going on to give him more strokes than these, your brother would be degraded in your eyes. 4 You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox while he treads out the grain.

Duty toward a Deceased Brother

5 If brothers live together, and one of them dies, having no son, the wife of the deceased shall not marry another man outside; her husband's brother shall go to her, and take her as his wife, and marry her for his brother. 6 And the first-born that she bears shall keep up the name of his deceased brother, so that his name is not erased from Israel. 7 But should the man be unwilling to take the wife of his brother, his brother's wife shall go up to the gate of the court, and say before the elders, My husband's brother refuses to keep up a name to his brother in Israel; he is not willing to marry me. 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak with him; and if he stands up and says, It is not my pleasure to take her; 9 then his brother's wife shall approach him in the presence of the elders, and remove his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and answer, and say, This is what shall be done to the man who will not build up the house of his brother. 10 And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of the removed shoe. 11 If men fight each other, a man and his brother, and the wife of one of them comes near to save her husband from the hand of him who strikes him, and reaches out and grabs his genitals, 12 then you shall cut off her hand, your eye shall have no pity on her.

Honest Weights and Measures

13 You shall not have in your bag two different weights, one large and one small. 14 You shall not have in your house two different measures, one large and one small: 15 you shall have full and accurate weights and full and accurate measures, so that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God gives you: 16 for everyone who does these things, everyone who acts falsely, is an abomination before the Lord your God.

Remember Amalek

17 Remember what Amalek did to you in the way, when you came up out of Egypt; 18 how he overtook you in the way, and killed all of you who were straggling behind when you were exhausted and weary; and he was not afraid before the Lord. 19 Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around, in the land which the Lord your God gives you for a possession to inherit, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens: do not forget.

Firstfruits and Israel’s Story

1 And when you have entered into the land which the Lord your God will give you for possession, and you inherit and dwell in it, 2 you shall take of the first of all the produce of the earth which you shall bring up from the land the Lord your God will give you, and put it into a basket, and go to the place which the Lord your God will choose to make His Shekinah dwell there. 3 And you shall come to the priest who will be in those days, and say to him: I declare today before the Lord your God, that I have come into the land which the Lord promised to our fathers to give them. 4 And the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and lay it down before the altar of the Lord your God; 5 and you shall answer and say before the Lord your God: Laban the Aramean sought to destroy my father, and he went down to Egypt, and lived there with a few people, but became there a people great and strong. 6 But the Egyptians mistreated and afflicted us, and laid hard labor upon us. 7 And we prayed before the Lord, the God of our fathers; and the Lord heard our prayer, and our suffering, weariness, and oppression were known before Him; 8 and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and raised arm, with great visions, signs, and wonders, 9 and brought us to this place, and gave us this land, a land producing milk and honey. 10 And now, look, I have brought the first fruits of the land which You, Lord, have given me. And you shall set it down before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God. 11 And you shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given you, with your household, the Levite and the foreigner who is among you.

The Declaration concerning Tithes

12 When you have finished tithing all the tithe of your produce in the third year, the year of the tithes, and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, so that they may eat within your cities and be satisfied, 13 then you shall say before the Lord your God: I have set apart the consecrated tenth from my house, and have given also to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, according to all Your commandment which You have commanded me. I have not transgressed Your commandment, nor forgotten it. 14 I have not eaten of it in my mourning, nor exchanged any of it for what is unclean, nor given of it for the dead. I have been obedient to the Memra of the Lord my God, and have done according to all that You have commanded me. 15 Look down from the heavens, Your holy dwelling, and bless Your people Israel, and the land which You have given us, as You swore to our fathers, a land producing milk and honey.

The Covenant Commitments

16 Today the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and judgments, and to keep and perform them with all your heart, and with all your soul. 17 Today you have declared the Lord to be your God, and to walk in the ways that are right before Him, and to keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments, and to be obedient to His word. 18 And the Lord has declared you today to be His beloved people, as He has said to you, so that you may observe all His commandments, 19 and so that He may set you above all the nations whom He has made, in praise, and in name, and in greatness, and so that you may be a holy people before the Lord your God, as He has spoken.

Stones and an Altar on Mount Ebal

1 And Moses and the elders of Israel instructed the people, saying: Observe all the commandments which I command you today. 2 On the day that you pass over the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall set up for yourself great stones, and cover them with plaster, 3 and write upon them all the words of this law, when you have passed over to go into the land which the Lord your God gives you, a land producing milk and honey, as the Lord God of your fathers has said to you. 4 When you have passed the Jordan, you shall set up those stones which I command you today, on the mountain of Ebal, and plaster them with lime; 5 and you shall build an altar before the Lord your God, an altar of stones: you shall not lift up iron upon it. 6 You shall build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God, and offer sacrifices on it before the Lord your God. 7 And you shall sacrifice holy sacrifices, and eat there, and rejoice before the Lord your God; 8 and you shall write upon the stones all the words of this law, distinctly and beautifully. 9 And Moses, and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel: Listen and hear, Israel: Today you are a people before the Lord your God; 10 and you shall listen to the Memra of the Lord your God, and do His commandments and His statutes which I command you today.

The Covenant Blessings and Curses

11 And Moses instructed the people on that day, saying: 12 These shall stand to bless the people on the mountain of Gerizim, when you have passed the Jordan; Simeon and Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. 13 And these shall stand to curse upon the mountain of Ebal; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. 14 And the Levites shall answer and say to all the men of Israel, with a loud voice: 15 Cursed is the man who makes an image or a cast-metal idol, an abomination before the Lord, the work of a craftsman's hand, and places it in secret. And all the people shall respond and say, Amen. 16 Cursed is anyone who despises his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen. 17 Cursed is anyone who changes the boundary of his neighbor. And all the people shall say, Amen. 18 Cursed is anyone who makes the blind wander in the way. And all the people shall say, Amen. 19 Cursed is anyone who perverts the judgment of the foreigner, the orphan, or the widow. And all the people shall say, Amen. 20 Cursed is anyone who has sexual relations with his father's wife: he violates his father's marriage bed. And all the people shall say, Amen. 21 Cursed is anyone who has sexual relations with any animal. And all the people shall say, Amen. 22 Cursed is anyone who has sexual relations with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen. 23 Cursed is anyone who has sexual relations with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say, Amen. 24 Cursed is anyone who strikes his neighbor in secret. And all the people shall say, Amen. 25 Cursed is anyone who accepts payment to kill an innocent person and shed innocent blood. And all the people shall say, Amen. 26 Cursed is anyone who does not confirm the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Blessings for Obedience

1 And if you will indeed be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you on high above all the peoples of the earth; 2 and all these blessings shall come upon you and keep with you, if you will be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God. 3 You shall be blessed in the city, and blessed in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the offspring of your womb, and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle, the oxen of your herd, and the flocks of your sheep. 5 Your basket and your store shall be blessed. 6 You shall be blessed when you come in and when you go out. 7 The Lord shall cause your adversaries that rise up against you to be shattered before you; they will come out to you in one way, but they shall flee in seven ways from before you. 8 The Lord will command a blessing upon you in all your storehouses, and on all that you set your hand to, and will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives to you. 9 The Lord shall confirm you for Himself to be a holy people, as He has sworn to you, if you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and walk in the ways which are right before Him. 10 And all the nations of the earth shall see that the Name of the Lord is invoked upon you, and they will be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will make you abound in good, in the offspring of your womb, and of your cattle, and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open for you His good treasure, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the works of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but not borrow; 13 and the Lord will make you strong and not weak,⁠a and you shall always be above and not below, if you will obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today to keep and to perform. 14 And you shall not go astray from any of the things I command you today, right or left, to walk after the gods of the Gentiles to serve them.

Curses for Disobedience

15 But if you will not obey the Memra of the Lord your God to observe and do all His commandments, and His statutes which I command you today, all these curses shall come upon you and cling to you. 16 You shall be cursed in the city, and cursed in the field; 17 cursed your basket and your store; 18 cursed the offspring of your womb, the produce of your ground, the oxen of your herd, and the flocks of your sheep. 19 You shall be cursed when you come in and when you go out. 20 The Lord shall send upon you curses and trouble and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, on account of the wickedness of your works, because you have forgotten to fear Me. 21 The Lord shall make the plague cling to you, until He has destroyed you from the land into which you are going to possess it. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting, with fever, with inflammation, with dryness, and with the sword, with crop blight, and with mildew. And they shall follow you until you are destroyed. 23 And the heavens over your head will be hard as bronze in withholding rain, and the ground under you hard as iron in producing no fruit. 24 The Lord will give you ashes for the rain of your land, and dust will come down from the heavens upon you, until you are destroyed. 25 The Lord will deliver you up to be broken before your enemies; you will go out to them by one way, but you shall flee by seven ways before them, and you shall be dispersed in all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And your body shall be thrown out for food for all the birds of the heaven, and for the animals of the earth, and there shall be no one to drive them away. 27 And the Lord will strike you with the ulcer of the Egyptians, with hemorrhoids, sores, and the scaly skin disease, from which you cannot be healed. 28 And the Lord will strike you with madness, and blindness, and with bewilderment of heart; 29 and you shall grope at noon as the blind gropes in darkness; and you shall not prosper in your way, but be only oppressed and robbed always, and no one will be able to save. 30 You will become engaged to a woman, but another man shall have sexual relations with her; you will build a house, but not live in it, and plant a vineyard, but have no use of it. 31 Your ox will be killed in your sight, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be taken away from you, and not be returned to you; your sheep will be delivered to your enemies, and you will have no one to rescue them; 32 your sons and daughters will be given up to another people, and your eyes will strain with longing for them all day, and you will be powerless. 33 A people you do not know shall consume the produce of your land and all your labor, and you will only be oppressed and crushed always. 34 And you will be driven mad by what your eyes see. 35 The Lord will strike you with a severe ulcer upon your knees and your thighs, from which you will not be able to be healed from the sole of your foot to your brain. 36 The Lord will take you and the king you have appointed over you into captivity to a people whom you and your fathers have not known; and there you shall serve a people, worshipers of idols of wood and stone; 37 and you will become a ruin, a proverb, and a cautionary tale, among all nations where the Lord shall make you go. 38 You will carry much seed into the field but gather little, for the locust will consume it; 39 you will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will not drink the wine, nor gather in, for the worm shall eat it; 40 you will have olive trees in all your borders, but you will not anoint yourself with their oil, for your olive trees shall wither; 41 you will father sons and daughters, but will not have them with you, for they shall go into captivity. 42 The locust will consume all the produce and the trees of your land. 43 The uncircumcised foreigner who is among you will rise up high above you, but you shall be brought down very low: 44 he shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be strong, and you will be weak. 45 And all these curses shall come upon you, and follow you, and cling to you until you are destroyed, because you were not obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you. 46 And they will be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and upon your children forever; 47 because you would not worship before the Lord your God with cheerfulness and goodness of heart for the abundance of all His benefits: 48 but you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and lack of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until He has destroyed you.

Siege and Exile

49 And the Lord will bring upon you a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, like the flying eagle, a people whose language you will not understand, 50 a people of mighty presence, who will not regard the old man, nor have mercy on the infant. 51 And he will eat up the increase of your cattle, and the produce of your ground, until he has destroyed you; for he will not leave you grain, wine, nor oil, the oxen of your herd, nor the sheep of your flock, until he has brought you to ruin. 52 And he will shut you up in all your cities, until he has brought down your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted to be saved by them throughout all your land; and he will besiege you in all your cities in all your land which the Lord your God gave you. 53 And you will eat the offspring of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God had given you, in the siege and distress with which your enemies shall press you. 54 The man who is gentle among you, and very delicate, will look grudgingly at his brother, and upon the wife of his covenant, and upon the remnant of his children whom he will leave; 55 he will not give to one of them of the flesh of his children which he shall eat, because nothing remains to him of all, in the siege and the distress with which your enemies shall press you in all your cities. 56 She who is tender among you, and delicate, who was not used to putting the sole of her foot upon the ground under her, from delicacy and tenderness, will look grudgingly at the husband of her covenant, and upon her son and her daughter, 57 and against her little children who have been brought forth of her, and against her children whom she has borne; for she will eat them in secret, in the lack of all things, in the siege and the distress with which your enemies shall press you in your cities: 58 if you will not take care to follow all the words of this law which are written in this book, to reverence this glorious and awe-inspiring Name, the Lord your God. 59 And the Lord will make your plagues extraordinary, and the plagues of your children, great and lasting plagues, severe and lasting afflictions. 60 And He will lay upon you all the plagues of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 The Lord will also lay on you all the diseases and plagues not written in this book of the law, until He has destroyed you. 62 And you, who had been as the stars of heaven in number, will be left a small people, because you would not be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God. 63 And as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to ruin and destroy you, and to carry you away from the land which you are entering to possess it. 64 And the Lord will scatter you among all nations to the ends of the earth; and you shall there serve peoples who worship idols of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 But among those nations you will have no rest, nor will the sole of your foot have rest, but the Lord will give you there a fearful heart, darkness of eyes, and weakness of mind; 66 and you will live in constant uncertainty, and be afraid by night and day, for you will never be sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, if only it were evening! but in the evening you will say, if only it were morning! from the fearfulness of your heart with which you will fear, and the sight of your eyes which you shall see. 68 And the Lord will cause you to return to Egypt, in ships, by the way of which I spoke with you, You shall see it no more: and there you shall be offered for sale as male and female slaves, but no one shall buy you. 69 These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to ratify with the children of Israel in the land of Moab; besides the covenant which He ratified with them at Horeb.

Remembering God’s Deliverance

1 And Moses called to all Israel, and said to them: You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt on Pharaoh, and all his servants, and on all his land; 2 the great trials, the signs and great wonders which your eyes saw; 3 yet the Lord has not given you a heart to understand, nor eyes to discern, nor ears to hear, to this day. 4 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothing has not become old upon you, and your shoes have not worn away from your feet; 5 you have not eaten bread, nor drunk wine, either new or old, so that you may know that I am the Lord your God. 6 And you came to this place; and Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us, to wage battle; and we struck them, 7 and subdued their land, and gave it for an inheritance to the tribe of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 8 Keep the words of this covenant, and perform them, so that you may prosper in all that you do.

Standing in the Covenant

9 You stand today all of you before the Lord your God, the leaders of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, every man of Israel; 10 your children, your wives, and your foreigner who is within your camp, from your woodcutters to your water carriers; 11 to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, and into His oath which the Lord your God ratifies with you today, 12 so that He may establish you today to be a people before Him, and so that He may be a God to you, as He promised you, and as He swore to Abraham, and to Isaac, and to Jacob. 13 And I ratify this covenant and oath not with you only, 14 but with him who is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, and with him also who is not here with us today. 15 For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the middle of the nations by whom we have passed. 16 And you have seen their abominations, and their idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them;

The Consequences of Abandoning the Covenant

17 so that there may not be among you a man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart is turned away today from the fear of the Lord our God, to go after the worship of these Gentiles; and so that there may not be among you a man who imagines wickedness or pride, 18 that, when he hears the words of this oath, he should think in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I go on in the thoughts of my own heart to multiply sins of ignorance with deliberate sins. 19 The Lord will not absolve him, but the anger and indignation of the Lord will now break out against that man, and all the curses which are written in this book will cling to him, and his name will be blotted out from under the heavens. 20 And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in the book of this law. 21 And the generation that comes after, and your children who will arise after you, and the Gentile who may come from a land far away, when they see the plagues of that land, and the afflictions with which the Lord will afflict it, 22 the whole land, sulfur and salt and burning, with no sowing, or growth, or any vegetation springing up in it, even as the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and indignation, 23 even all the nations will say, Why did the Lord do this to this land? What caused the fury of this anger? 24 Then they shall say: Because they have abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He ratified with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. 25 For they went and served the idols of the Gentiles, and worshiped fearful things which they did not know, and which could do them no good. 26 And the anger of the Lord grew strong against this land to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book. 27 And the Lord drove them from their land in anger, indignation, and great violence, and drove them captive into another land as they are today. 28 The things which are secret are before the Lord our God; and those which are revealed are ours, and our children's forever, so that we may do all the words of this law.

Return and Restoration

1 And it will be that when all these words of blessings or of curses which I have set before you have come upon you, and you take them to heart among all the nations where the Lord your God has led you captive, 2 and return to the fear of the Lord your God, and obey His Memra, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and all your soul, 3 that the Lord your God will restore your fortunes, and have mercy upon you, and will return, and gather you from all the nations among which the Lord your God has dispersed you. 4 If any of your dispersed are scattered to the ends of the heavens, the Lord your God will gather you from there, and lead you. 5 And the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers inherited, and you shall possess it: and He will do you good, and multiply you above your fathers. 6 And the Lord your God will take away the foolishness of your heart, and the foolishness of your children's heart, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, so that you may live. 7 And the Lord your God will put all these curses upon your enemies and upon those who hated and persecuted you; 8 but you shall return and be obedient to the Memra of the Lord, and do all the commandments which I command you today. 9 And the Lord your God will make you abound in all the works of your hand, the offspring of your womb, the increase of your cattle, and the produce of your land, to good; for the Lord will again rejoice in doing you good, as He rejoiced over your fathers; 10 when you shall be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and statutes which are written in the book of this law, if you return to the fear of the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.

The Word Is Near

11 For this commandment which I command you today is not apart from you, nor is it far away. 12 It is not in the heavens, that you should say, Who shall go up for us into heaven, so that he may bring it to us, so that we may hear and do it? 13 nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who will go over for us beyond the sea, and bring it to us, so that we may hear and do it? 14 For the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it.

Choose Life

15 Look, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil; 16 for I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in the ways that are right in His presence, and to keep His commandments, statutes, and judgments, so that you may live and multiply, and the Lord God may bless you in the land into which you are going, to possess it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not obey, but will go astray, and worship the idols of the Gentiles, and serve them, 18 I have shown you today that you shall certainly perish. You will not live long in the land where you pass over Jordan to enter in and possess it. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses: but choose life, so that you may live, you and your children, 20 to love the Lord your God, to be obedient to His word, and to keep close to His fear, for He is your life, and the One who gives you long life, to live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them.

Joshua Succeeds Moses

1 And Moses went and spoke these words with all Israel. 2 And he said to them, I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and to come in; and the Lord has said to me, You shall not pass over this Jordan. 3 The Lord your God, He goes over before you; He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall inherit them. Joshua, he goes over before you, as the Lord has said. 4 And the Lord will do to them as He did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and to the lands of them whom He destroyed. 5 The Lord will deliver them up, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments that I have commanded you. 6 Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or terrified of them; for the Memra of the Lord your God will be the leader before you, He will not abandon you, nor be far from you. 7 And Moses called Joshua, and said to him before the eyes of all Israel, Be strong and courageous; for you are to go in with this people to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give it to them, and you shall give them their inheritance. 8 But the Lord, He is the leader before you; His Memra shall be your helper, for He will not abandon you, nor be far from you; do not be afraid or dismayed.

Reading the Law to All Israel

9 And Moses wrote this law, and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel. 10 And Moses commanded them, saying: At the end of seven years, at the time of the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, in the place that He will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel, and make them hear. 12 Gather the people together, the men, the women, and children, and your foreigners who are in your cities, so that they may hear, and learn, and fear before the Lord your God, and observe and perform all the words of this law, 13 and that their children who have not known may hear and learn to fear before the Lord all the days that you live in the land to which you pass over the Jordan to possess it.

A Song as a Witness

14 And the Lord said to Moses, Look, the days are drawing near for you to die: call Joshua, and let him stand in the Tent of Meeting, and I will commission him. And Moses and Joshua went and stood in the Tent of Meeting. 15 And the Lord was revealed at the tabernacle in the pillar of the cloud, and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle. 16 And the Lord said to Moses, Look, you are to sleep with your fathers; and this people will rise up and go astray after the idols of the peoples of the land among whom they are going, and will abandon My fear, and turn away from My covenant which I have made with them. 17 And My anger will be kindled against them at that time, and I will drive them far away, and remove My Shekinah from them to destroy them, and many evils and troubles shall happen to them. And they will say in that day, Is it not because the Shekinah of my God is not among me, that these evils have happened to me? 18 But I will remove My Shekinah from them at that time on account of the evils they had done; for they will have turned away after the idols of the nations. 19 And now, write for yourselves this hymn, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it upon their lips, so that this hymn may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel. 20 For when they have entered into the land which I promised to their fathers, a land producing milk and honey, and they have eaten and been satisfied, and have grown prosperous, they will turn away after the idols of the nations, and serve them, and provoke to anger before Me, and change from My covenant. 21 And when many evils and troubles have fallen on them, this song shall answer against them, for it will not be forgotten from the mouth of their children, because the intentions they are forming are known before Me today, while I have not brought them into the land which I have promised. 22 And Moses wrote this hymn on that day, and taught it to the children of Israel. 23 And he commanded Joshua son of Nun, and said, Be strong, and courageous; for you shall bring the sons of Israel into the land which I have promised to them, and His Memra shall be your helper.

The Law beside the Ark

24 And it was, when Moses had finished writing the words of this law on a scroll until they were completed, 25 that Moses commanded the Levites who bore the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, saying, 26 Take this book of the law, and put it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and it shall be there for a witness against you. 27 For I know your rebelliousness, and your stubbornness: look, while I am alive with you today, you have rebelled against the Lord; how much more will you rebel after I am dead? 28 Gather to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, and I will speak these words before you, and will call the heavens and earth to witness: 29 for I know that after I am dead you will corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you, and that evil will happen to you at the end of days; for you will do evil before the Lord to provoke Him to anger by the works of your hands. 30 And Moses spoke before all the congregation of Israel the words of this hymn, until he had finished it.

The Song of Moses

1 Listen, you heavens, and I will speak; listen, earth, to the words of my mouth. 2 My teaching shall be soft as rain; let it be received as the dew, and my word be as the breath of the rain that breathes upon the grass, and as the showers of the latter rain upon the grass. 3 For I call on the Name of the Lord: declare the greatness of our God; 4 the Mighty One whose works are perfect; for all His ways are justice; a faithful God from whom no wrongdoing proceeds, He is just and true. 5 They have corrupted themselves, and not Him; children who worship idols, a generation that changes its work, and makes it another. 6 Look, is this how you repay the Lord, you people who have received the law, but have not become wise? Is He not your Father, and you are His who made you and bought you? 7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of generation after generation; ask your fathers, and they will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. 8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided humankind, He established the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel. 9 For the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. 10 He satisfied their needs in the land of the wilderness, in the dry place where there was no water; He placed them around His Shekinah; He taught them the words of His law; He kept them as the apple of His eye. 11 As the eagle which hurries to his nest, and spreads himself over his young ones, stretching out his wings, takes them, bears them up with the strength of his flight feathers, 12 so the Lord alone prepared them to live in the world He will renew, while the worship of idols shall not be established before Him. 13 He settled them in the strong places of the earth, to eat the captured goods of their enemies: He gave them the captured goods of the rulers of cities, and the wealth of those who lived in strong fortresses. 14 He gave them the captured goods of their kings and sultans, with the riches of their princes, and the strength of the people of their lands, their possessions, the captured goods of their armies and camps, and the blood of their heroes was poured out like water. 15 But Israel grew fat and kicked, he prospered, grew strong and got rich, and forgot the worship of Eloha who made him, and provoked the Almighty who redeemed him. 16 They provoked Him by the worship of idols, by abominations they made Him angry. 17 They sacrificed to demons who can give no help, and fearful things that they had not known, new gods recently made, with which your fathers had no dealings; 18 you have forgotten the Awe-Inspiring One and the Omnipotent who created you; you have abandoned the worship of Eloha who made you. 19 And it was seen before the Lord, and His anger was kindled by the provocation of His sons and daughters before Him. 20 And He said: I will remove My Shekinah from among them; their final end is known to Me; for they are a perverse generation, children who have no faith. 21 They have moved Me to jealousy by that which is not worshipful, they have angered Me by their idolatries; and I will make them jealous by what has not been a people, I will provoke them through a foolish nation. 22 For a burning, strong as fire, shall go out before Me in fury consuming to the lowest hell, to make an end of the earth and its produce, and to destroy the mountains to the end; 23 and I will multiply calamities upon them, I will send My plagues among them; 24 they shall be swollen with hunger, and be eaten by the birds, and be tormented with evil spirits; and I will send the teeth of wild animals among them with the venom of serpents that crawl in the dust. 25 Outside the sword will devour, and inside the rooms death will kill, the youths and the young women, the nursing infants with the aged. 26 I said I would make My anger to remain upon them and destroy them; I will abolish their memory from among humankind: 27 except that the enemy's anger would grow stronger, and the adversary make himself great, and would say: Our hand has prevailed, and all this is not from the Lord. 28 For they are a people that abandons counsel, and there is no understanding in them. 29 If only they were wise, that they had understanding in this, and would consider what will be in their end! 30 How would one pursue a thousand, and two put 10,000 to flight, unless the Mighty One had delivered them up, and the Lord had repaid them! 31 For their strength is not as our Strength, and our enemies are the judges. 32 For their punishment will be like that of the people of Sodom, and their stroke like that of the people of Gomorrah; their plagues will be evil as the heads of serpents, and the retribution of their works like their venom. 33 The cup of their punishment is like the poison of venomous serpents and like the heads of cruel cobras. 34 Are not all their works known before Me, stored in My treasures against the day of judgment? 35 Their punishment is before Me, and I will repay;⁠a in the time of their dispersion from their land; for the day of their ruin draws near, and that which is prepared for them is coming quickly. 36 For the Lord shall decide the judgment of His people, and He will avenge His righteous servants; for it is seen before Him, that in the time when the stroke of their enemies would prevail against them, they will be wavering like those who are abandoned. 37 And He will say: Where are their idols, the mighty things in which they had trusted, 38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them now rise up and help you, let them be a shield over you. 39 See, now, that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me. I kill and make alive, I wound but also heal, and there is no one who can rescue from My hand. 40 For I have prepared in the heavens the dwelling of My Shekinah, and have said, I live forever. 41 When My sword is revealed like the sight of twofold lightning from one end of the heavens to another, and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will take vengeance on My enemies and repay My adversaries; 42 I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall kill the peoples, that by the blood of the slain, and the captives, I may take the crowns from the head of the opponent and the enemy. 43 Give praise, you Gentiles, with His people, because His righteous servants will have been avenged; for He will bring retribution on those who hate Him, and will show mercy to His land and His people.

Moses’ Final Instructions

44 And Moses came and spoke all the words of this hymn before the people, he and Joshua son of Nun. 45 And Moses finished speaking all these words with all Israel, 46 and said to them, Set your heart upon all the words that I have witnessed to you today, so that you may instruct your children to observe and perform all the words of this law. 47 For the word is not given in vain to you; it is your life, and by this word you will live long in the land which you pass over Jordan to inherit.

Moses Is Called to Mount Nebo

48 And the Lord spoke with Moses the same day, saying: 49 Go up to this mountain of Abarim, the mountain of Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and see the land of Canaan which I have given to the sons of Israel for possession; 50 and, dying on the mountain to which you go up, you shall be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people; 51 because you were unfaithful to My Memra in the middle of the children of Israel, at the waters of Meribah, at Petra, in the desert of Zin, and because you did not show My holiness among the children of Israel. 52 For, though you may see the land, yet from there you shall not go in to the land which I have given to the children of Israel.

Moses Blesses Israel

1 And this is the blessing with which Moses, the prophet of the Lord, blessed the children of Israel before his death; 2 and he said: The Lord was revealed from Sinai, and the brightness of His glory appeared to us from Seir. He was revealed in His power upon the mountain of Paran, and with Him were 10,000 saints; He gave us, written with His own right hand, the law from the middle of the fire. 3 He loved the tribes, all the holy ones of the house of Israel; with power He led them out of Egypt, and they were conducted under Your Cloud, they journeyed by Your Memra. 4 Moses gave to us the law, and gave it as an inheritance to the congregation of Jacob. 5 And he was the king in Israel, when the heads of the people were gathered with the tribes of Israel.

The Tribal Blessings

6 Let Reuben live forever, and not die the second death; and let his children receive their inheritance according to their numbers. 7 And of Judah he said this: Hear, Lord, the prayer of Judah when he goes out to battle, and let him return to his people in peace; let his hands take vengeance on his enemies, and be You to him a help against his enemies. 8 And of Levi he said: Clothe the man who is found holy before You with perfections and lights; whom You tested in the time of testing, and he was upright, and whom You tested at the waters of Meribah, and he was faithful. 9 Who, when they had sinned, had no mercy in the judgment upon his father or his mother, and no respect to his brother or his children; for they have kept the charge of Your word, and they have not changed Your covenant. 10 These are worthy to teach Your judgments to Jacob, and Your law to Israel. They shall set the sweet incense before You, and the full freewill offerings upon Your altar. 11 Bless, Lord, his wealth, and accept the offering of his hands with favor; break the backs of his enemies and of his adversaries, so that they may not rise. 12 Of Benjamin he said: The beloved of the Lord shall live in safety by Him: the shield will be over him all the days, and the Shekinah will live in his land. 13 And of Joseph he said: Blessed be his land from before the Lord; let it bear fruit by the dew of the heavens from above, and from the fountain springs, and the depths which flow from the abysses of the earth beneath, 14 let it bear fruit and produce which the sun causes to grow; let it bear fruit from the beginning of month after month; 15 and first fruits from the mountain tops, and good things from the unfailing hills, 16 with the good of the earth and its fullness, and the favor of Him whose glory is in the heavens, and who was revealed to Moses at the Bush: let all these come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the man who was separated from his brothers. 17 The greatness of his children will be his beauty, and the mighty works done for him from before the Omnipotent and the Most High, by whose strength he will defeat nations together to the ends of the earth; and these are the myriads of the house of Ephraim, and these are the thousands of the house of Manasseh. 18 And to Zebulun he said: Rejoice, Zebulun, when you go out to war against your adversaries, and you, Issachar, when you go to calculate the time of the festivals in Jerusalem. 19 They shall assemble the tribes of Israel at the mountain of the sanctuary, to offer there the holy sacrifices freely; for they will eat the wealth of the nations, and the treasures hidden in the sand shall be disclosed for them. 20 And of Gad he said: Blessed is He who enlarges Gad. He dwells as a lioness; he will kill sultans with kings: 21 and he shall receive his own at the beginning: for there, in his inheritance, Moses the scribe and leader of Israel is to be buried; he who came out and went in at the head of the people, who has done righteousness before the Lord and His judgments with Israel. 22 And of Dan he said: Dan is strong as a lion's cub; his land is watered by the streams that flow from Bashan. 23 And of Naphtali he said: Naphtali, satisfied with favor and full of blessings from the Lord, shall inherit from the western sea, Gennesaret, to the south. 24 And of Asher he said: Asher shall be blessed with the blessings of children: let him be acceptable to his brothers, and be nourished with the royal delicacies: 25 you shall be strong as iron and bronze, and your strength shall be as in the days of your youth.

The Everlasting Help of God

26 There is no God like the God of Israel, whose Shekinah in the skies is your help, and whose power is in the heaven of heavens. 27 The habitation of Eloha is from eternity, and the world was made by His Memra;⁠a and He will drive out your enemies from before you, and will say, Destroy. 28 And Israel shall dwell securely by themselves, according to the blessing with which Jacob their father blessed them in the land producing grain and wine; the heavens also above them shall drop down with dew. 29 Happy are you, Israel; no one is like you, a people whose salvation is from the Lord, who is the strength of your help, and from whom is the might of your victory: your enemies shall lie to you, and you shall tread upon the necks of their kings.

Moses Sees the Promised Land

1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to the mountains of Nebo, to the summit of the height which is opposite Jericho; and the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead to Dan, 2 and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah to the western sea, 3 and the south, and the country of the plain of Jericho, the city of palm trees, to Zoar. 4 And the Lord said to him, This is the land which I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your children; you have seen it with your eyes, but to it you are not to pass over.

The Death of Moses

5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, by the Memra of the Lord. 6 And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor: but no one knows his tomb to this day. 7 And Moses was 120 years old when he died: his eye had not dimmed, neither was the radiance of his face changed. 8 And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the fields of Moab thirty days; and the days of the mourning for Moses were completed.

Joshua and the Legacy of Moses

9 And Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him, and the children of Israel obeyed him, and did as the Lord had commanded through Moses. 10 But no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, to whom the Lord revealed Himself face to face, 11 in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all his land, 12 and all the Mighty Hand, and all the great manifestations which Moses performed in the eyes of all Israel.