Day 148 of 365

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

²Moses called to all Israel, and said to them, You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹⁰You stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel,

¹¹your little ones, your wives, and your foreigner who is in the midst of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water;

¹²that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, and into his oath, which the Lord your God makes with you this day;

¹³that he may establish you this day to himself for a people, and that he may be to you a God, as he spoke to you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

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

¹⁵but with him who stands here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him who is not here with us this day

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

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

¹⁸lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the Lord our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood;

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

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

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

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

²³and that the whole land of it is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

²⁴even all the nations shall say, "Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?"

²⁵Then men shall say, "Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,

²⁶and went and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods that they did not know, and that he had not given to them:

²⁷therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring on it all the curse that is written in this book;

²⁸and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day."

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

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

²and shall return to the Lord your God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul;

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

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

⁵and the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and he will do you good, and multiply you above your fathers.

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

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

⁸You shall return and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all his commandments which I command you this day.

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

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

¹¹For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.

¹²It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?"

¹³Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?"

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

¹⁵Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil;

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

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

¹⁸I denounce to you this day, that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land, where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it.

¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed;

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

¹Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.

²He said to them, "I am one hundred twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: and the Lord has said to me, 'You shall not go over this Jordan.'

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

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

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

⁶Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, nor be scared of them: for the Lord your God, he it is who does go with you; he will not fail you, nor forsake you."

⁷Moses called to Joshua, and said to him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous: for you shall go with this people into the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to inherit it.

⁸The Lord, he it is who does go before you; he will be with you, he will not fail you, neither forsake you: do not be afraid, neither be dismayed."

⁹Moses wrote this law, and delivered 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.

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

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

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

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

¹⁴The Lord said to Moses, "Behold, your days approach that you must die: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting, that I may commission him." Moses and Joshua went, and presented themselves in the Tent of Meeting.

¹⁵The Lord appeared in the Tent in a pillar of cloud: and the pillar of cloud stood over the door of the Tent.

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

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

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

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

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

²¹It shall happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I swore."

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

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

²⁴It happened, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,

²⁵that 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 by the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.

²⁷For I know your rebellion, and your stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, you have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death?

²⁸Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.

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

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

¹Praise Yah! Praise the Lord from the heavens! Praise him in the heights!

²Praise him, all his angels! Praise him, all his army!

³Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you shining stars!

⁴Praise him, you heavens of heavens, You waters that are above the heavens.

⁵Let them praise the name of the Lord, For he commanded, and they were created.

⁶He has also established them forever and ever. He has made a decree which will not pass away.

⁷Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures, and all depths!

⁸Lightning and hail, snow and clouds; stormy wind, fulfilling his word;

⁹mountains and all hills; fruit trees and all cedars;

¹⁰wild animals and all livestock; small creatures and flying birds;

¹¹kings of the earth and all peoples; princes and all judges of the earth;

¹²both young men and maidens; old men and children:

¹³let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted. His glory is above the earth and the heavens.

¹⁴He has lifted up the horn of his people, the praise of all his holy ones; even of the children of Israel, a people near to him. Praise Yah!

¹Do not be envious of evil men; neither desire to be with them:

²for their hearts plot violence, and their lips talk about mischief.

³Through wisdom a house is built; by understanding it is established;

⁴by knowledge the rooms are filled with all rare and beautiful treasure.

⁵A wise man has great power; and a knowledgeable man increases strength;

⁶for by wise guidance you wage your war; and victory is in many advisors.

⁷Wisdom is too high for a fool: he doesn't open his mouth in the gate.

⁸One who plots to do evil will be called a schemer.

⁹The schemes of folly are sin. The mocker is detested by men.

¹⁰If you falter in the time of trouble, your strength is small.

¹¹Rescue those who are being led away to death! Indeed, hold back those who are staggering to the slaughter!

¹²If you say, "Behold, we did not know this;" doesn't he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn't he know it? Shall he not render to every man according to his work?

¹³My son, eat honey, for it is good; the droppings of the honeycomb, which are sweet to your taste:

¹⁴so you shall know wisdom to be to your soul; if you have found it, then there will be a reward, your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁵Do not lie in wait, wicked man, against the habitation of the righteous. Do not destroy his resting place:

¹⁶for a righteous man falls seven times, and rises up again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

¹⁷Do not rejoice when your enemy falls. Do not let your heart be glad when he is overthrown;

¹⁸lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.

¹⁹Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; neither be envious of the wicked:

²⁰for there will be no reward to the evil man; and the lamp of the wicked shall be snuffed out.

²¹My son, fear the Lord and the king. Do not join those who are rebellious:

²²for their calamity will rise suddenly; the destruction from them both-who knows?

²³These also are sayings of the wise. To show partiality in judgment is not good.

²⁴He who says to the wicked, "You are righteous;" peoples shall curse him, and nations shall abhor him-

²⁵but it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and a rich blessing will come on them.

²⁶An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.

²⁷Prepare your work outside, and get your fields ready. Afterwards, build your house.

²⁸Do not be a witness against your neighbor without cause. Do not deceive with your lips.

²⁹Do not say, "I will do to him as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work."

³⁰I went by the field of the sluggard, by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;

³¹Behold, it was all grown over with thorns. Its surface was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down.

³²Then I saw, and considered well. I saw, and received instruction:

³³a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep;

³⁴so your poverty will come as a robber, and your want as an armed man.