 CHAPTER 6 These are the commands and constitutions and decrees which your ever-living God commands you to learn to practice in the land to which you will pass over to possess. So you must fear your ever-living God and preserve all the constitutions and commandments which I command you, you and your children and the children of your children, all the time of your life. Listen, therefore, Israel, and keep and practice them, so that you may prosper and so that you may increase greatly as your ever-living God promised to your fathers upon entering into the land flowing with milk and honey. Listen, Israel, our ever-living God is a single life, therefore love your ever-living God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, and let these words that I command you today be in your heart and teach them to your sons and speak about them when sitting in your house and in traveling on your journeys and when lying down and when rising up. Bind them also as ornaments upon your hands and as frontlets between your eyes and write them upon the doors of your house and upon your gates, and then when your ever-living God brings you to the country which he promised to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give to you great and beautiful cities that you built not and houses full of furniture that you did not make and many fortresses which you did not fortify. Then yearns and olive yards which you did not plant where you may eat and be satisfied. Take care to yourselves lest you forget the ever-living who brought you from the land of the Mitsarayim from the house of bondage. Fear your ever-living God and serve him and swear by his name. You must not go after other gods than God, those of the peoples around you, for your ever-living God is a jealous God. Guard yourselves lest the anger of your ever-living God should burn against you and he should destroy you from off the face of the land. You shall not try your ever-living God as you tried him in Massa. You shall carefully preserve the commands of your ever-living God and his proofs and his constitutions that he ordered you. And you shall practice justice and right in the sight of the ever-living so that you may prosper and possess that beautiful country where the ever-living promised to your fathers to repulse all your enemies before you as the ever-living will do. When your son inquires of you hereafter asking, why did the ever-living God order these proofs and constitutions and decrees for you, you shall answer to your son. We were slaves to Pharaoh in Mitsarayim and the ever-living brought us out from among the Mitsarites with a strong hand and the ever-living produced great wonders and portents and inflicted sufferings on the Mitsarites upon Pharaoh and upon all his family in our sight. But brought us from there and brought us up to give us this country which he had promised to our fathers. Therefore the ever-living commanded us to practice all these constitutions and to fear our ever-living God for our benefit all the time of our lives as at this day. And it is right for us that we should continue to practice the whole of these commands before our ever-living God as he commanded us. For your ever-living God will bring you to the country which you are now going to seize to plunder nations more numerous than yourselves. The Kithites and the Gershanites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Parasites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Seven nations more numerous and stronger than yourselves whom your ever-living God will deliver up before you and you will defeat them. Destroy them and make no treaty with them and do not pity them, do not marry with them, give not your daughter to his son, nor take his daughter for your son. For it will turn your heart from following me and you will serve other gods when the anger of the ever-living will burn against you and he will destroy you quickly. Consequently you shall do this to them, you shall throw down their altars and break their columns and smash their shrines and melt their cast images in the fire, because you are a people devoted to your ever-living God. Your ever-living God chose you to be a people for himself, separated from all the peoples who are upon the face of the earth. Has he not increased you more than all the peoples? The ever-living did not unite with you because you were the most numerous of the peoples but chose you when you were the least of all the peoples and the ever-living loved you because of keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers. Therefore the ever-living brought you out with a strong hand and freed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of the Mitsarayim. Therefore know that the ever-living is God, the God who faithfully keeps his covenant and shows favor to those who love him and regard his commands for a thousand generations, but repays his enemies, those who hate him to their face by destroying them. He will not delay to repay those who hate him to their face. Therefore preserve the commandments and the constitutions and the decrees which I command you today and practice them, for there will be a reward if you listen to these decrees and preserve and practice them, for your ever-living God will keep the covenant and the favor which he promised to your fathers and will love you and bless you and increase the fruit of your body and the fruit of your grounds. Your corn, your grapes, and your oil, your cattle shall breed and your sheep bring forth upon the ground which he promised to your fathers to give to you. You shall be more blessed than any people. Neither male nor female shall be sterile among you, nor your cattle barren, and the ever-living will turn from you every disease and sickness of the Mitsarites, the sufferings that you know. He will not lay them upon you, but will put them on all who hate you. Therefore you shall consume all the peoples whom your ever-living God gives to you. Your eyes shall not have pity on them, nor serve their gods, for they will be your snare. If, however, your heart should say to you, these nations are more numerous than I, I am not able to dispossess them. Fear them not! Remember what your ever-living God did to Pharaoh and to all the Mitsarites, the great calamities that your eyes saw and the wonders and the portents and the strong hand and the directing arm with which your ever-living God brought you out. Your ever-living God will do the same to all the peoples before whom you are afraid. Your ever-living God will also send upon them fever to destroy the remnants who hide themselves from you. You shall not be pursued by them, for your ever-living God is among you, a great God of light. Your ever-living God, however, will drive these nations before you little by little. You shall not be able to master them quickly, for fear the beasts of the field should multiply upon you. But your ever-living God will displace them before you and dissolve with much confusion until they perish, and he will deliver their kings to your hand, and you shall destroy their names from under the skies. Not a man can stand before you until you have desolated them. You shall burn their carved gods with fire. You shall not desire the gold and silver they are made of, or take it for yourselves, for fear you should be ensnared by it, for you must serve the ever-living. He is your God. Therefore you shall not bring their foul practices into your house, but you shall be pure, for what contaminated them will contaminate you, and what defiled them will defile you. Therefore be pure. Chapter 8 You must regard all the commands that I order you today in practice, so that you may live and increase and go to seize the country that the ever-living promised to your fathers. But remember how all the way your ever-living God led you these forty years in the desert to try you, to prove you, to examine you, whether you would keep his commands from your heart or not. Therefore he afflicted you, and hungered you, and fed you with manna, which you had not known, nor had your fathers known, so that he might teach you, that man lives not by bread alone, but that man lives by all that comes from the mouth of the ever-living. Your clothes were not rags, nor your feet shoeless in those forty years, and you knew in your heart that as a man instructs his son, your ever-living God instructed you. Therefore keep the commands of your ever-living God, and walk in his paths and fear him, for your ever-living God brings you to this beautiful land, a land of brooks of water, springs and torrents, coming out of the valleys and out of the hills, a country of wheat and barley and vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a country where you will not eat from stores. Bread shall never fail at all in it, a land where the rocks have iron, and from whose hills you can dig copper, where you can eat and fill yourselves, and bless your ever-living God over the beautiful land he has given to you. Take care of yourselves lest you should forget the ever-living your God. Only keep his commandments and decrees and institutions which I command you today, for fear when you eat and are full, and have built yourselves beautiful houses and reside in them, and your cattle and your sheep multiply, and your silver and gold have increased, and all your possessions have grown, and your heart rises, that you might forget your ever-living God who brought you up out of the land of the Mitsarayim from the house of Bondage, who led you through this great desert where you saw the fiery serpents and scorpions and the dry waterless land, where he brought you water from the flinty rock, feeding you in the desert with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known so that he might try you with the purpose of ultimately benefiting. You, however, may say to your heart, I have obtained this power by my own courage and the vigor of my hands, yet remember it was your ever-living God who gave you that courage and granted that power so that he might establish the covenant which he swore to your fathers as he does today. But if ever it comes that you forget your ever-living God and go after other gods and serve and worship them, I bear witness to you today that you shall perish like the nations the ever-living destroyed from before you, thus you shall perish because you did not listen to the voice of your ever-living God. Chapter 9 Listen, Israel, you are about to cross the Jordan to seize nations greater and more powerful than yourself, great cities fortified up to the skies, a people great and tall, sons of the Anakim whom you know and of whom you said, who can stand before the sons of Anak? But I bear witness today that your ever-living God who goes before you as a consuming fire, he will devastate them and he will defeat them before you and you shall drive out and destroy them from the hills as the ever-living commanded you. When your ever-living God has driven them away from you, think not to say to your heart, for my righteousness the ever-living has brought me to possess this country, therefore the ever-living has driven out the nations who possessed it before me. Not for your righteousness nor for the rectitude of your heart did you come to possess their country, but because of the wickedness of those nations, your ever-living God drove them out before you and for the same reason he established the covenant which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, consequently learned that your ever-living God has not given you to possess that beautiful country because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. Remember, forget not how you have provoked your ever-living God in the desert from the day he brought you out of the land of the Mitsurayim until you arrived at this spot. You have been rebels against the ever-living. In Horab also you provoked the ever-living and the ever-living was angry with you to destroy you when I went up the mountain to receive the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the ever-living made with you, when I stayed forty days and forty nights eating no bread and drinking no water, when the ever-living gave to me the two tables of stone written by the finger of God and upon them all the commandments which the ever-living dictated to you on the hill from the midst of the fire at the time of the public assembly and there at the end of forty days and forty nights the ever-living gave to me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant. When the ever-living said to me, Arise, go down from this hill for your people whom I brought out from among the Mitsurayim have gone to corruption. They have turned quickly from what I commanded them. They have cast an idol for themselves. The ever-living also spoke to me saying, I have observed this people and see that it is a perverse people. Fly from me and I will destroy and sweep their name from under the heavens and I will make from you a powerful nation and a greater than they. I consequently turned and descended from the hill and the hill burnt with fire but the two tables of stone were in my two hands. Then I looked and perceived that you had sinned against your ever-living God having made for yourselves a cast metal calf, turning yourself soon from the path which the ever-living commanded you so I raised the two tables and threw them from my two hands and broke them in your sight. I afterwards fell before the ever-living as at first for forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread nor drank water because of all the sin that you had sinned in doing wrong in the sight of the ever-living to provoke him for I was afraid in the presence of the anger and indignation which stirred the ever-living against you to destroy you but my ever-living God heard me again at that time. The ever-living also was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him but I prayed at the same time for Aaron himself and your sin, the calf that you had made I took and melted in fire and beat it grinding as small as fine dust and threw the dust upon the brook that flowed from the hill. At Tabara again and at Massa and Kimbroth HaTava you were provoking the ever-living and when the ever-living sent to you at Kadesh Barnea an order saying go up and seize the country which I have given you again you rebelled against the order of your ever-living God and were not true to him and would not listen to his voice you were always rebels from the ever-living from the day I knew you I fell however before the ever-living for those 40 days and those 40 nights I fell down because the ever-living said he would destroy you but I prayed to the ever-living and said Almighty Lord do not wreck your people and your inheritance whom you redeemed by your greatness whom you brought up from the Mitsarayim with a strong hand remember your servants Abraham and Isaac and Jacob turned not to afflict this people for its wickedness and for its sin lest the country from which you brought them should say because the ever-living was not able to bring them to the land which he promised and because he hated them he brought them out to kill them in the desert they are also your people and your inheritance whom you brought out by your great power Chapter 10 then the ever-living said to me cut two tables of stone like the former ones and come up to me on the hill also make an ark of wood and I will write upon the tables the commandments that were upon the former tables that you broke and you can put them in the ark I consequently made an ark of acacia wood and cut two tables of stone like the first ones and ascended the hill with the two tables in my hands and he wrote upon the tables the same writing as upon the former ones the ten commandments which your ever-living god proclaimed on the hill from amid the fire on the day of the public assembly then the ever-living gave them to me so I turned and descended from the hill and placed the two tables in the ark that I had made and they are there as the ever-living instructed me I then remained on the hill as at the previous time forty days and forty nights and the ever-living listened to me also again they should not desire to wreck you so the ever-living said to me arise, proceed, march before the people and let them go on and seize the country which I promised to their fathers to give to them and now Israel what your ever-living god asks of you is that you should fear your ever-living god and walk in all his ways and love him and serve your ever-living god with all your heart and all your life and to keep the commandments of the ever-living and all his institutions which I have commanded you this day for your own benefit look the heavens and the heaven of the heavens the earth and all it contains belong to your ever-living god yet the ever-living chose to love your fathers and he selected their race after them from all the peoples as at this day therefore circumcised the flesh of your hearts and never stiffened your necks for your ever-living god is a god of gods and almighty of all mighties the great god the powerful and the enlightener who will not regard appearances and will not take bribes who does justice to the orphan and the widow and loves to give bread and clothes to the stranger therefore you should love the stranger for you were a stranger in the land of the Mitsarayim fear your ever-living god serve him and hold to him and swear by his name he led you and he is your god who produced for you those great things and the revelations that your eye saw your fathers went down to the Mitsarayim as 70 persons and now your ever-living god has collected you as a multitude like the stars of the heavens the end of chapters 6 through 10 of the book of Deuteronomy recording by Mark Penfold chapter 11 through 15 of the book of Deuteronomy from the Holy Bible in modern English this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Mark Penfold the Holy Bible in modern English translated by Farar Fenton the book of Deuteronomy chapters 11 through 15 chapter 11 therefore love your ever-living god carefully regard him and his institutions and his decrees and his commands for all time and learn them today for you are not children who have not known and have not seen the corrections of your ever-living god his greatness and his strong hand and his directing arm and his wonders and the events that he affected in the midst of the Mitsaraites upon Pharaoh king of the Mitsarayim and all his country and what he did to the army and their horsemen and to their chariots how the sea, the sea of Suf rushed over their heads when they followed after you how the ever-living destroyed them on that day also what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this spot and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab the son of Reuben how the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them and their homes and their tents for your eyes have seen all the great events that the ever-living has done therefore attend to all the commands that I command you today so that you may be hearty and go and seize the country that you are advancing to possess and so that you may lengthen your stay upon the land which the ever-living swore to your fathers to give to them and to their race a land flowing with milk and honey for the country you are going to possess where you sowed your seed and watered it on your feet like a vegetable garden but the country you are advancing to is a land of hills and veils and of rain from the skies refreshed with water a land that your ever-living god visits the eyes of your ever-living god are continually upon it from the first of the year until the last of the year so it will happen if you attentively listen to my commands that I command you today and love your ever-living god and serve him with all your heart and with all your life that I will give rain upon your land at the season of sprouting and of ripening and you shall harvest your corn and your wine and your oil I will also give herbage upon your fields for your cattle that you may eat and be satisfied but guard yourselves from seducing your hearts and turning to serve other gods and worshiping them for then the anger of the ever-living will burn against you and he will shut the skies and there will be no rain and the land will not give its increase and you will soon perish from upon the beautiful country which the ever-living gave you therefore fix these words upon your hearts and upon your souls and bind them as ornaments upon your hands and let them be as frontlets between your eyes and teach them to your children to talk about in your homes in your families and in your journeys on the road going down and rising up write them also upon the doors of your house and upon your gates so that you may increase your days and the days of your children upon the ground which the ever-living promised to your fathers to give to them as long as the skies endured over the earth for if you carefully keep all these commands which I command you to practice and love your ever-living god and walk in all his ways and add hair to him and everything will drive all those nations from before you and you shall possess nations greater and stronger than yourself every place that the soul of your foot treads shall be yours from the desert to Lebanon from the river the river freight backwards to the sea you shall be your boundaries none shall stand before you you shall terrify and chase them your ever-living god will give all the country to you which you have traveled through as he promised I will place before you today cursing and blessing the blessing which you have heard in the commands of your ever-living god which I command to you this day and the cursing if you do not listen to the commands of your ever-living god but turn from the path which I command to you this day to walk after other gods whom you have not known so when your ever-living god has brought you to the country that you go to possess you shall place the blessing upon the hill of Ibal are they not over the Jordan following the path of the declining sun in the land of the Canaanites who reside in the west opposite Gilgal at the side of the Oakwood of Mora when you cross the Jordan to go to seize the country which your ever-living god will give to you you shall seize it and settle in it but take care to practice the whole of the institutions and the legislation which I have placed before you today Chapter 12 which are the institutions and the legislation which you shall carefully practice in the land which the ever-living the god of your fathers will give to you to possess all the time that you live upon the earth you must absolutely destroy all the columns which the nations whom you drive out worship their gods upon the hills and heights and upon the mountains and which they call upon a wheat tree you shall also throw down their alters and break their pillars and burn their shrines in fire and smash the images of their gods and destroy their names from the places where they are you shall not do so to your ever-living god for at the place which your ever-living god may choose from any of your tribes to place his name there to fix it you shall go to it and bring there your burnt offerings and sacrifices and your services and the blessings of your hands and your vows and the first fruits of your herds and flocks and you shall eat them there before your ever-living god and cheer yourselves in all the success of your hand you and your families when your ever-living god blesses you you shall not offer as we do here today all that is right in your own sight for you have not yet arrived at the rest and the inheritance which your ever-living god will occupy the country that your ever-living god will divide among you and rest from all your enemies around and dwell securely then to the place where your ever-living god shall choose to fix his name you shall bring all that I have commanded you your burnt offerings and sacrifices your gifts and the presence of your hand and all your free vows that you vow to the ever-living you shall enjoy yourselves there before your ever-living god and the daughters and men servants and maid servants and the Levite who is in your village for he has not a share or a state among you you must guard yourselves from offering your burnt offerings in every place you see except in the place which the ever-living may choose in one of your tribes there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do all that I have commanded you however you may to all the desires of your life the offerings which your ever-living god has given you in all your villages both the clean and the unclean may eat of them like as of the gazelle and the stag except that they shall not eat the blood that shall be poured upon the ground like water you shall not eat in your villages from the offering of your corn and wine and oil or of the firstlings of your herd or flock or of any vow which you vow of your presence from your hands you shall only eat such in the presence of your ever-living god at the place which your ever-living god chooses to himself you and your son and your daughter and your manservant and maidservant and the Levite who is in your village shall enjoy yourselves before your ever-living god in all the prosperity of your hand take care that you do not forget the Levite all your time upon the earth for your ever-living god will extend your boundaries and will promise you therefore I tell you to eat flesh wherever you desire to live you may eat flesh in all places you wish to live you may eat flesh for the place where your ever-living god may choose to fix his name may be far from you therefore you may sacrifice from your herd and from your flock that the ever-living gives you as I commanded you and may eat in your villages of all that your life desires none clean may eat they may both eat only refrain from eating the blood for the blood is the life and you shall not eat the life with the flesh you shall not eat it you shall pour it upon the earth like water you shall not eat it for it is well to you and to your children after you that you should do right in the sight of the ever-living only what you have consecrated by yourself and your vows you shall take up and bring to the place where you shall offer your burnt offerings with the flesh and the blood upon the altar of your ever-living god for the blood of your sacrifice shall be poured upon the altar of your ever-living god and you shall eat the flesh listen attentively to all these words that I command you so that you may prosper and your children after you forever while you do fair and right in the sight of your ever-living god when your ever-living god has defeated the nations before you and you possess them and reside in their country guard yourselves from inquiring about them from turning to inquire about their gods and asking how did these nations serve their gods for I would do the same myself you shall not do so with your ever-living god for all the offerings to the ever-living which you take up to offer to your god as well as those of your sons and your daughters shall be burnt with fire to your god Chapter 13 you must carefully practice all the things which I have commanded you you must not add to them nor shall you take away from them when a preacher arises among you or a dreamer of dreams and gives you a proof or an evidence and the proof or the evidence which he has declared to you comes to persuade you to walk after other gods whom you have not known and to serve them listen not to the words of that preacher or to that dreamer of dreams for your ever-living god is trying you to learn if you are lovers of your ever-living god with all your heart and with all soul you must walk after your ever-living god and fear him and keep his commandments and listen to his voice and serve him and adhere to him therefore that preacher or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death for your ever-living god who brought you from the land of the Mitsurayim and freed you from the house of bondage for he would seduce you from the path your ever-living god commanded you to walk in so you must burn the evil from your breast if your brother the son of your mother should seduce you or your son or your daughter or the wife of your bosom or your friend who is like your life should say privately let us go and serve other gods or fathers some of the gods of the peoples who are around you close to you or far from you from one boundary of the earth to the other boundary of the earth do not incline to him or listen to them let not your eye feel pity for them and do not grieve or feel compassion for them but kill your hand shall be the first to bring them to death and the hand of all the people after you should seduce you from your ever-living god who brought you from the land of the Miserites from the house of bondage then all Israel will hear and fear and not continue to practice that sin in your midst if you shall hear that at any city where your ever-living god has granted you to reside it is said there come men sons of Belial from our midst and seduced the residents of our city saying you shall inquire and investigate and if the truth of the report is established about that abomination in the midst of you you shall strike the residents in that town with the edge of the sword and devoted with all that are in it and put the cattle to the edge of the sword and collect the whole of the furniture to the middle of its marketplace and consume all its furniture completely to your ever-living god and it shall be a ruin forever it shall not be built again and nothing of the accursed things shall stick to your hands so that the ever-living may turn away from his burning anger and grant you mercies and benefit you and increase you as he promised to your fathers so long as you listen to your ever-living god and keep all his commandments which I command you today and do right in the sight of your ever-living god Chapter 14 you are the children of the Lord you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your eyebrows for the dead for you are a people consecrated to your ever-living god and the ever-living chose you to be a people separated from all the peoples who are upon the face of the earth you shall eat no filth these are the beasts that you may eat the ox, the sheep kind and the goat kind the stag and gazelle and roebuck and shammy and antelope and springbuck that divide the hoof and chew the cud those animals you may eat but of these who chew the cud you may not eat although they divide the hoof the camel and the kangaroo and the rabbit who chew the cud but do not divide the hoof they are unclean to you with the hog although it divides the hoof yet it does not chew it is unclean to you you shall not eat of its flesh among all that are in the waters all that have fins and scales you may eat but of all that have not fins and scales you may not eat they are unclean to you you may eat every clean bird but you may not eat of these the eagle and the osprey the buzzard and kite with their species and the whole of the raven species and the ostrich and the nighthawk and the seagull and the snake eater and the bittern and the vomiter and the eagle vulture and the turkey buzzard with the stork and the snorter with their species and the hoopoo and the bat and all the winged spawners are unclean to you you may not eat them you may eat every clean bird but you may not eat any self dying carcass give them to the foreigner who resides among you before your ever living god you shall not boil a kid and its mother's milk you shall tithe the whole of the produce of your grain as it comes from the field year by year and you shall eat of it before your ever living god in the place that he chooses to fix his name both of your corn and wine and oil and of the blessings of your herd and flock so that you may learn to reverence and be able to carry it because the place which your ever living god has chosen to fix his name in is too far from you then you shall bless your ever living god and convert it into money and take the money in your hand and go to the place that your ever living god has chosen for himself and expend that money in all that your life requires in oxen and sheep and wine and flesh and in all that your life demands and eat them there and enjoy yourself with your family but you shall not forget the Levite who is in your villages for he has no inheritance and share with you at the end of the third year you shall bring the whole of the tithe of your produce in that year and leave your villages the Levite shall also come for he has no share or inheritance with you and the foreigner along with the fatherless and the widow who are in your villages and they shall eat and bless you in all the work of your hands which you have done Chapter 15 at the end of seven years there shall be a releasing and this is the kind of releasing every possessor of mortgaged land which his neighbor has mortgaged shall release it you shall have no claim against his neighbor or his brother because it is a release by the ever living you may have a claim against foreigners but you must release from your hand what belongs to your brothers for nothing for you will not be poor yourself because blessing the ever living will bless you in the country which your ever living God will give to you to possess that is if you listen to the voice of your ever living God and continue to practice the whole of his commandments which I command you today for your ever living God you will have many nations but you will not borrow and you shall rule over many nations but they shall not rule over you yet there will be poor among you one brother with another in your villages in the country which your ever living God gives you harden not your heart nor close your hand from your poor brother but open your hand to him and lend according to his necessity what is needful to him guard yourself from saying this year the year of releases near and your eye is cruel to your poor brother and you will not lend to him when he will cry against you to the ever living and it will be a sin to you lend freely to him and let not your heart grudge against lending but rely upon this fact that your ever living God will then bless you in all you do and in all sent from your hand for the poor will never be you have commanded you saying open your hand freely to your distressed brother to your poor in the land when your relative is sold to you a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman he shall serve you six years but in the seventh year you shall set him free from you but when you set him free from you you shall not send him away destitute you shall reward him liberally from your flock and from your corn you shall be blessed you shall give to him and shall remember that you were slaves among the Midsarayim and your ever living God freed you therefore I command this thing today but if it occurs that he says to you I will not go from you for I like you and your house for I have been satisfied with you then you shall take and all and fix him by his ear to your door and he shall always be your servant that is until your death that is how you shall do it shall not be hard in your sight to send him from you into freedom for you shall only purchase your servant by the year for six years then your ever living God will bless you in all your work every firstborn which you're heard or your flock bears remember you must dedicate to your ever living God you shall not work the firstborn of your cow nor share the firstborn of your you shall eat them year by year before your ever living God in the place that the ever living chooses you and your family but if there be a defect or lameness in it or bareness or any disease you shall not sacrifice it to your ever living God you must eat it in your villages the clean and the unclean together as you do the gazelle and stag only you must not eat their blood pour it upon the earth like water the end of chapters 11 through 15 of the book of Deuteronomy recording by Mark Penfold chapters 16 through 21 of the book of Deuteronomy from the Holy Bible in modern English this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Mark Penfold the Holy Bible in modern English translated by Farrar Fenton the book of Deuteronomy from chapter 16 through 21 please note chapters 20 and 21 are in non-consecutive order chapter 16 regard the harvest month and offer the Passover to your ever living God for in the harvest month your ever living God brought you out of the land of the Mitsarayim at night therefore sacrifice as the Passover and in the place which your ever living God has chosen to fix his name there you shall not eat any ferment upon it for seven days you must eat unfermented bread only for you came out from the Mitsarayim in haste therefore you shall remember the day you came out from the land of the Mitsaraites all the days of your life and nothing fermenting shall be seen in all your boundaries for seven days and you shall not leave any of the flesh which you sacrifice at the beginning of the evening of that day until the morning you will not be permitted to sacrifice the Passover in any of the villages which your ever living God gives to you but only at the place which your ever living God may choose to fix his name there may you sacrifice at the Passover at the afternoon as the sun declines at the time you came out from the Mitsarayim so you shall roast and eat it in the place which your ever living God has chosen for himself as you turned on that morning you shall eat unfermented bread with your God for six days and on the seventh day you shall assemble to your ever living God you shall do no business upon it count seven Sabbaths from the beginning of putting the sickle to the corn count to the end of seven Sabbaths then you shall make the festival of Sabbaths to your ever living God and enjoy yourselves before your ever living God you and your sons and your daughters and your maid servants and the Levite who is in your village and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow who are among you at the place that your ever living God has chosen to fix his name in for you must remember you were slaves among the Mitsarayim therefore preserve and practice these institutions you must also make yourselves a festival of seven days after the harvesting of your corn and vintage and your daughter and your man and maid servants and the Levite and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow who are in your villages you must feast for seven days to your ever living God in the place that the ever living may choose because your ever living God has blessed you in all your products and in all the work of your hand therefore you must be glad all your men shall see the presence of your ever living God three times in a year at the feast of unfermented bread and at the feast of weeks and at the feast of tabernacles and you shall not see the presence of the ever living empty handed you shall appoint judges and recorders for yourselves in every village which your ever living God gives to you to control you and to govern the people with honest government you shall not distort justice you shall not regard stations you shall not take bribes for bribes blind the eyes of the intelligent and pervert the decrees of justice you shall follow perfect justice so that you may live and possess the country that your ever living God has given to you you shall not plant shrines or any trees at the side of the altar you make to your ever living God nor shall you erect for yourselves columns as standards to your ever living God Chapter 17 you shall not sacrifice to your ever living God an ox or a sheep in which there is any defect anything bad for that would be an insult to your ever living God if there should come out from any of your villages which your ever living God gives you a man or a woman who does wrong in the sight of the ever living by slighting his covenant and going and serving other Gods and worshiping them or any of the hosts of the skies contrary to my command and it is reported to you when you hear it then you should inquire carefully and if the truth of the thing is confirmed that such an outrage has been done in Israel you shall bring out that man or that woman who have done that wicked thing in the village of the man or woman and stone them to death with stones they shall be put to death on the evidence of two or three witnesses upon the evidence of one witness they shall not be put to death the hands of the witnesses shall be first upon them to kill them then the hands of all the people afterwards you shall thus burn that wickedness from among you if a case should occur among you difficult to decide between blood and blood between right and right and between stroke and stroke and affair of a contention in your gates you shall remove it and the person who is ever living God has chosen for himself and go to the priests to the Levites and to the judge who may be in your times and appeal and report the matter to the chief judge and act upon the decision which he pronounces you shall not turn from the order that he communicates to you to the right or to the left and the person who acts insolently against the decree of the priest appointed thus you shall burn that evil out of Israel and all the people will hear and fear and no longer be consumatious when you arrive in the country which your ever living God has given to you and possess it and reside in it and say to yourselves let us place a king over us like all the nations who are around you shall only place over you the king whom your ever living God may choose for himself you shall place a king over you a foreigner over yourselves a man who is not your brother further he shall not collect horses to himself and he shall not take the people back to the Mitsarayim because of its abundance of horses for the ever living has commanded you not to contemplate to return by that way forever he shall not collect wives about himself nor turn his heart to silver and gold to accumulate them excessively when he is set upon the throne for his kingship and for him a duplicate of the law from the book in the custody of the Levitical priests and he shall keep it with him and read in it every day of his life so that he may learn to fear the ever living his God to guard the whole of the commandments of the law and to administer these institutions so that his heart may not rise above his brothers and that he may not turn from its commands to the right or to the left so that he may extend his days with his sons in the circuit of Israel Chapter 18 There shall be no share or inheritance to the Levitical priests or any of the tribe of Levi with Israel the ever living is their inheritance and feeder therefore they shall have no inheritance among their brothers the ever living is their inheritance as I said to you therefore there shall be decreed for the priests whether ox or sheep there shall be given to the priests the foreleg, jaws and breast you shall give to them the first fruits of your corn also the first fruits of your oil and the first fleece of your flock for your ever living God chose them from all your tribes to stand to serve to the name of the ever living they and their children for all time and when a Levite comes to one of your villages in Israel although he is a stranger there and comes from any village where he formerly lived he may serve to the name of the ever living his God like all his brothers who are fixed there in the presence of the ever living they shall eat share and share alike of equal value on account of their ancestry when you enter the country that your ever living God has given you you shall not learn the depravities of those heathens from here to divinations and enchantments or for witchcraft or incantations or inquiry of spirits or foretellers or questioning the dead for the ever living loathes all these practices and to sweep away all these practices your ever living God has driven them from before you you must be perfect before your ever living God for those heathens whom you will drive out listened to cloud makers and to diviners and to give yourselves to the ever living your God your ever living God will raise up a prophet like me for you from among your brothers after me listen to him you all requested one from your ever living God at Horeb on the day of the public meeting saying we cannot continue to hear the voice of the ever living God nor longer to see this great fire for fear of death when the ever living replied to me I will raise for them from amongst their brothers one like you and will put words into his mouth and he shall report to them all I command them and any man who will not listen to the messages which he delivers in my name I will drive out from my people but the prophet who shall presume to deliver a message in my name which I have not commanded him to deliver or who shall speak in the name of other Gods that prophet shall die but perhaps you may say in your heart that I distinguish such a message as what the ever living has not spoken when the prophet delivered it in the name of the ever living although he was not commanded when the event does not happen then the ever living has not spoken the prophet has spoken it in his presumption fear him not Chapter 19 when your ever living God has destroyed those heathen of whom your ever living God has given you the country to dwell in their cities and their houses you shall separate three cities to yourselves in the midst of the country that your ever living God gives you to possess you shall then make roads for your use to these three cities from the boundaries of the country which your ever living God has divided amongst you so that any manslayer can fly to them however this is the kind of manslayer who may fly there and live he who has struck his neighbor unintentionally when he did not previously hate him for instance one who went with his neighbor to a wood to cut timber and the iron flew from the handle of the axe in cutting the timber or the iron flew from the tree and caught his neighbor and he dies he may fly to one of these cities and live lest the avenger of blood pursue after the manslayer whilst his heart is hot and overtake him he has been condemned to death for he did not hate before the event consequently I command you to appoint three cities to be provided for yourselves but if your ever living God extends your boundaries as he promised to your fathers and gives to you the whole of the country which he promised to give to your fathers you shall also attend to all these orders to do what I have commanded you today and love your ever living God and walk in his ways at all times therefore add three other cities beside these three because you shall not shed innocent blood in the breast of the land that your ever living God has given you to inherit for that blood would be upon yourselves but if it happens that a man hates his neighbor and waits for him and arises against him and strikes at his life so that he dies and then flies to one of those cities of God the magistrates of that city deliver him to the hand of the Avenger of Blood and he shall be killed your eyes shall not pity over him for you must burn out innocent blood from Israel that you may prosper you shall not remove the boundary of your neighbor which your chiefs placed to your estate when they divided the country which your ever living God gave you to possess a single witness shall not be received against a person for any offense or for any sin that may be committed the evidence of two witnesses or of three must establish it when anyone makes a quarrel with a man to do him an injury both the persons between whom the dispute is must appear before the presence of the ever living and before the priests and judges who may be in their times and the judges shall inquire carefully to ascertain who is the false witness giving false evidence to injure his brother and shall do to him as he intended to do to his brother and burn that wrong from their midst so that when others hear they may fear and not continue to do similar wrong amongst you your eyes shall consequently not pity life for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot Chapter 21 Verses 1-9 When a corpse is found fallen in a field in the land which your ever living God gives you to possess and it is not known how killed your chiefs and magistrates shall go and measure to the towns that are round about the corpse to ascertain the town that may be nearest to the corpse then the head man of that town shall take a heifer from the herd which has not worked which has not drawn wheels and the head man of that town shall be taken down to a veil with a constantly flowing brook which has not been cultivated nor reaped and break the neck of the heifer at the brook then the priests of the sons of Levi shall approach for the Lord your God chose them to officiate and to bless in the name of the ever living and every contention and every dispute shall be decided by them with all the magistrates of the surrounding towns to the corpse and wash their hands in the brook and asseverate and say our hands have not shed this blood and our eyes did not see it cover it to the people of Israel whom you have chosen Lord and lay not innocent blood on the breast of your people of Israel then the blood shall be covered for them and you will burn the innocent blood from amongst you for you must practice justice in the eyes of the ever living Chapter 20 Verses 1-14 When you go to war with your enemies and see horses and chariots a people more numerous than yourselves fear them not for your ever living God is with you who brought you from the land of the Mitsarayim and when you are preparing for the war the priests shall come forward and address the people and say to them listen Israel you are now preparing for war with your enemies let not your heart shrink nor be startled nor terrified at them for your ever living God marches with you to fight for you against your enemy and save you the magistrates also shall address the people saying what man is there who has built a new house and not dedicated it let him go and return to his house for fear he should be killed in the war and another man should dedicate it and what man has planted a vineyard and has not reaped it let him go and return to his home for fear he should be killed in the war and another man reap it and what man is engaged to a woman and has not married her let him go and return to his home for fear he should be killed in the war and another man marry her the magistrates shall even add to this address to the people and ask what man fears with a timid heart let him go and return to his house and not depress the hearts of his brothers like his own heart and when the magistrates say to the people then they should appoint officers to the regiments to command the people when you approach a city to war against it you shall propose peace to it and if they will adopt peace and open to you then all the people found in it shall be subject to you and serve you but if they will not accept peace with you but make war against you then assail them for your ever living God the women and children however and the cattle and all that may be in the city all the booty you may seize for yourselves for you may use the booty of your enemies which your ever living God gives to you chapter 21 verses 10 through 14 when you advance to war with your enemies and your ever living God gives them into your hand and you take them captive and see amongst the captives there is a beautiful woman and you have a desire for her to take her to yourself as a wife you shall take her into the sanctuary of your house and uncover her head and pair her nails and she shall put off the clothing in which she was captured and reside in your house and weep for her father and mother the space of a month and after that happens that you do not like her you shall free her for life you shall not sell her for money you shall not treat her as a slave because you have degraded her chapter 20 verses 15 through 20 you must do the same to all the cities afar from you which are not of cities of these nations here but in the cities of these peoples that your ever living God has given to you to divide you shall not preserve a living breath but devote them the Hittites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Parasites the Hivites and the Jebusites according to the command of your ever living God the reason is so that you may not learn from them to practice all the depravities which they practice against God and thus you would sin for a period warring with it to capture it you shall not destroy the fruit trees by assailing them with the axe for you can feed from them therefore you shall not cut them down for the trees of the fields sprang from the ground before you came to the siege however the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and fell and build towers with them against the city which is warring with you until you subdue it from 16 through 23 when a man has two wives and loves the one and dislikes the other and they bear children to him both the loved and the disliked and the son of the disliked one is the eldest when it comes to the time for his sons to inherit he cannot make the son of his darling the eldest in place of the son of the disliked who is eldest but he must acknowledge that he is the eldest and give to him two parts of all he possesses for he is the first fruits of his love he is justly first born when a man has a disobedient and rebellious son who will not listen to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother but disobeys them and will not listen to them his father and mother shall take him and conduct him to the magistrates of the town when his father is disobedient and rebellious he will not listen to our voice he is depraved and drunken then all the people of his town shall stone him with stones and kill and that evil will be burnt out from your breast and Israel will hear and fear when a person has committed a crime condemnable to death you shall kill him and hang him upon a tree you shall not however spend a day for God abhors the hung consequently you shall not defile your country that your ever living God has given you to possess the end of chapters 16 through 21 of the book of Deuteronomy recording by Mark Penfold chapters 22 through 25 of the book of Deuteronomy from the Holy Bible in modern English this LibriVox recording is in the public domain of Mark Penfold the Holy Bible in modern English translated by Farrar Fenton the book of Deuteronomy chapters 22 through 25 chapter 22 you shall not see the ox or sheep of your neighbor straying and hide it from him you shall drive them back to your neighbor but if you cannot find your neighbor in your vicinity you shall serve them in your own premises but if it occurs afterwards that your neighbor inquires for them from you then return them to him you shall also do the same with his ass and the same to his clothing and the same with everything lost by your neighbor which he has lost and you have found you shall not use them secretly you shall not see the ox or sheep and hide them up for him a woman shall not wear a man's dress and a man shall not dress like a woman for your ever living God abhors all who do thus when you find a bird's nest before you in the path or on any tree or chicks upon the earth or eggs and the mother sitting upon her chicks or upon her eggs you shall not take the mother with her young so that it may be well with you and you may extend your days when you build a new house you shall make a battlement on the circuit of the roof so that you may not bring blood upon your house if anyone falls from it you shall not double crop your farm that would spoil the full development of the seed you sow and the produce of the farm you shall not plow with an ox and an ass yoked together you shall not weave silk you may make tassels upon the four corners of the cushions that you sit upon when a man takes a wife and ongoing to her hates her and puts insulting reports upon her and brings a bad name upon her by saying I married this woman and when I approached her I found she was not a maiden then the father and mother of the girl shall take and bring the maiden of the village and the father of the girl shall say to the magistrates I gave my daughter to this man as a wife but he hates her and now he sets up insulting reports saying I did not find your daughter a maid but here is the proof of her chastity then they shall spread the garment before the magistrates of the town and the magistrates of the town shall take that man and punish him because he had brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel but she shall be his wife he shall not be able to divorce her for his life but if that report is true the proofs of the chastity of the girl not being found then they shall take the girl to the outside of the house of her father and kill her because she has acted disgracefully in Israel by prostitution in the house of her father and thus you shall burn that man is found fornicating with a married woman they shall die both of them the man who committed adultery with a woman and the woman thus you shall burn that evil from Israel when a young maiden who is engaged to a man meets a man in a town and he fornicates with her bring both of them to the gate of the town and stone them with stones to the wife of his neighbor thus you shall burn that evil from your breast but if the man meets the betrothed girl in the fields and the man overpowers her and ravishes her then the man alone who has ravished her shall die and you shall do nothing to the girl the girl has committed no sin for death for as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him so is this crime when a man meets a young maiden who is not engaged and takes her and seduces her when he is discovered that man who corrupted her shall give to the father of the girl fifty silvers and she shall be his wife afterwards because he degraded he shall not be able to divorce her all his days chapter 23 a man shall not marry the wife of his father a eunuch and an emasculated man shall not enter a public meeting of the ever-living the child of incest shall not enter a public meeting of the ever-living they shall not enter into a public meeting of the ever-living for ten generations an ammonite and a moabite shall not enter a public meeting of the ever-living they shall never enter into a public meeting of the ever-living not supply you with bread and water upon the march when you came from among the Mitsurayim, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Bior from the center of Aram of the rivers to curse you. But it did not please your everliving to listen to Balaam, so your everliving God turned the cursing into a blessing, for the everliving your God loves you. You shall not seek their peace or benefit all your days forever. You shall not exclude an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not exclude a Mitsurite, because you were a foreigner in his country. The children that they produce may be naturalized with the everliving after three generations. When you go to war with your enemy, keep yourselves from any vile practice. If there happens to be with you a man unclean from any accident at night, let him go outside the camp and not come into the middle of the camp, and at the approach of evening let him bathe in water, and at the decline of the sun he may enter the heart of the camp. You shall therefore provide a trench near your camp where you can make a cesspool. You shall also have a spade with your weapons, so that when you turn yourselves to the cesspool and have evacuated, you can carefully cover up your excrement, for your everliving God marches in company with your camp to protect it and to defeat your enemies before you. Therefore your camps must be clean, that he may not see anything unsightly about you and turn away. You shall not deliver up a slave who has taken refuge with you from his master to his master. Let him reside amongst you in the place he chooses in one of your villages to benefit himself. You shall not drive him out. You shall not make a prostitute of a daughter of Israel. There shall not be a sodomite among the sons of Israel. You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the hire of a ruffian to the house of your everliving God for any vow, for your everliving God loathes both of them. You shall not take interest from your brothers, interest upon money, interest upon food, interest upon anything which can be lent at interest. You may charge interest to foreigners, but from your countrymen you shall not take interest so that your everliving God may bless you in every endeavor of your hand in the country which you are going to possess. When you vow a vow to your everliving God, you shall not delay to pay it, for the everliving your God will demand it from you, and that would be a sin to you. But if you do not vow, it will be no sin. You must carefully perform the utterance of your lips, whatever you vow to your everliving God, you must give whatever you have promised with your mouth. When you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat grapes to satisfy your wish, but you shall not put any into your basket. When you go through your neighbor's cornfields, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not cut from your neighbor's corn with a sickle. Chapter 24 When a man takes a wife and marries her, if she does not find favor in his eyes because there are found repulsive qualities in her, let him write her a letter of divorce and put it into her hand and send her from his house so that she can go from his house and depart and be the wife of another. But if the other man hates her, then let him write her a letter of divorce and put it in her hand and send her from his house. Or if the second man dies, who took her to him as a wife, she shall not be allowed to return to the first to divorce her to be married as his wife after she has sinned. For that would be loathsome in the presence of the everliving. Therefore you shall not defile the land which your everliving God gives you to inherit. When a man has recently taken a wife, he shall not go out with the army and no expedition shall be laid upon him for anything. He shall be freed for his home for one year and enjoy the wife he has married. You shall not take and pledge a millstone or its carriage, for that would be to pledge a life. When a man is discovered stealing a person who is his brother of the sons of Israel and has caused him to be bound and sold, that thief shall be put to death. Thus you shall burn that crime from amongst you. Regarding contagious diseases, take a special care to do all that I have instructed you. The priests and the Levites must take care to do according to the rules I commanded them. Remember what your everliving God did to Miriam on the march out of Mitsarayim. When as a creditor you lend your neighbor anything, you shall not go into his house to advance upon the pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring to you the pledge at the outside. And although the man is poor, you shall not take his bed as the pledge. You shall return to him from his pledge at the decline of the son, both his bed and blanket, that he may bless you. And it will be righteousness to you in the presence of your everliving God. You shall not oppress the poor and helpless of your brothers in their wages, nor the foreigner who is in your country or your villages. You shall pay them their wages daily when the son shall set upon them, for they are poor and their life depends on them, so that they may not cry to the everliving against you, for it would be a sin against you. You shall not kill parents on account of their children, nor children on account of their parents. A man shall only be put to death for his own crimes. You shall not refuse justice to the orphan of a foreigner, nor shall you distort it against the widow of a foreigner. But remember that you were slaves to the Midsarites, but your everliving God released you from that. Therefore I command you not to do these things. When you reap your harvest on your farm, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not return to take it. It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, so that your everliving God may bless you in all the work of your hand. When you strip your olives, you shall not pick after yourself. That shall be done by the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. When you gather your vineyard, you shall not glean after yourself. That shall be for the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. For you must remember you were a slave in the land of the Midsarites. Therefore I command you to do these things. CHAPTER XXV When there is a dispute between men, and they appear before the judge, he shall examine between right and right, and wrong and wrong. And when he has decided between the assailant and the assailed, he shall cause him to be punished in his own presence according to the extent of his crime. You may inflict forty strokes, not more, for fear if you strike him beyond these many lashes, your brother should become degraded in your sight. You shall not muzzle a bullock when thrashing. When brothers reside together, and one of them dies, and does not leave a son, the wife of the dead man shall not be wife to a stranger. Her brother-in-law shall go to her himself and marry his brother's wife, and the first son that she bears, he shall bring up with his dead brother's name so that his name may not be wiped out from Israel. But if the man refuses to marry his sister-in-law, then his sister-in-law shall go to the court of the judges and say to them, My brother-in-law who could raise up a name to his brother in Israel is not willing to do his duty. The judge of the town shall then summon him and examine him about it when he shall appear and say, I am not willing to take her. Then the sister-in-law shall approach to him in the sight of the judges and pull the shoe from his foot, and spit in his face and insult him and say, So let them do to the man who will not build up his brother's house, and he shall be nicknamed in Israel the slip-shod man. When men are fighting together, a man and his neighbor and the wife of one approaches to help her husband by a stroke of her hand, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, her hand shall be cut off, your eye shall not spare her. There shall not be in your bag weight and weight, full weight and short weight. There shall not be in your house measure and measure, full measure and short measure. You shall have a just and right weight. You shall have a just and right measure, so that your time may be extended in the land which your ever-living God gives to you, for the ever-living your God abhors all who do those wicked things. Remember what Amalek did to you on your march as you came from the Mitsarayim, how he met you in the road and assailed your rear, all the sick who were following you, when you were weary and harassed you, and he did not regard the ambassadors. Therefore, when your ever-living God has given you peace from all your enemies around, in the country that your ever-living God has given you to divide into estates, wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the skies, do not forget. PENFOLD CHAPTER XXIX When you come into the country which your ever-living God has given you to divide and possess and live in, you shall take the first fruit of all the produce of the ground that comes from the land which your ever-living God gives you, and put it in a basket and carry to the place where the ever-living your God chooses to fix his name, and go to the priest who may be in those days and say to him, I have today brought to the presence of the ever-living your God, some of what the land which the ever-living promised to our fathers to give to us has produced. Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it before the altar of your ever-living God, you shall then kneel and say in the presence of your ever-living God. My ancestor was a wandering Aramite, and he went down to the Mitsarayim as a foreigner with a few persons, but he became there a great, strong, and numerous nation. Then the Mitsarites wronged us, and oppressed us, and imposed a cruel slavery upon us, but we cried to the ever-living God of our fathers, and the ever-living heard our voice and looked upon our affliction, and our sorrow, and our oppression, and the ever-living brought us out from among the Mitsarayim with a strong hand, and a directing arm, and with great signs and wonders, and revelations, and conducted us to this place, and gave us this country, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now, see, I have brought some produce of the ground which the ever-living has given to me, and have placed it before your ever-living God. Then you shall bow down before your ever-living God, and enjoy yourself with all the good things that your ever-living God has given you, and your family, yourself, and the Levite, and the stranger who is amongst you. Then afterwards fully tithe the whole that is tithable of your produce in the third year, you shall tithe yearly, and give to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, and they shall be fed in your villages, and be satisfied. You shall also declare before your ever-living God, I have eaten the consecrated part with my family, and I have also given of it to the Levite, and to the foreigner, and the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commands which you have commanded me. I have not passed over from your commands, and I have not evaded. I have not used any part in self-indulgence. I have not consumed any part in depravity. I have not given any part to the dead. I have listened to the voice of the ever-living God. I have done all that he has commanded me. Look down from your holy dwelling from heaven, and bless your people of Israel, and the land that you have given to us as you promised to our fathers, the land flowing with milk and honey. This very day your ever-living God commands you to practice these institutions, and these decrees, and to preserve and do them with all your heart, and with all your soul. The ever-living has told you today he will be your God, and that you must walk in his paths, and preserve his institutions, and his commands, and his decrees, and to listen to his voice. The ever-living has also told you today to be his separated people as he commanded you, and to preserve all his orders, and to fix yourself high over all the heathen, so as to make yourself glorious and famous and beautiful, and that you should become a people's sacred for your ever-living God as he commanded you. Then Moses and all the judges of Israel commanded the people, saying, Preserve all the commands which I have ordered you today, and at the time you pass over the Jordan to the country that your ever-living God will give to you, set up great stones and spread them over with plaster, and engrave upon them the whole of the commands of these laws when you pass over and arrive in the country which the ever-living your God has given you, a land flowing with milk and honey as the ever-living God promised to your fathers. And when you have passed over the Jordan you shall set up those stones as I command you today upon the hill of eyeball and plaster them with plaster. You shall also build an altar there to your ever-living God, an altar of stones you shall not use iron upon them. You shall build the altar to your ever-living God of whole stones and shall offer upon it a burnt offering to the ever-living your God. You shall also sacrifice thank offerings and feast there and enjoy yourselves before the ever-living, then write upon the stones the whole of the words of this law engraved deeply. Moses and the Levitical priests also proclaimed to all Israel, saying, Today be silent and listen Israel, you are to become the people of the ever-living your God. Therefore listen to the voice of your ever-living God and put in practice the commands and institutions that I command you today. And Moses further commanded the people at that time, saying, These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people. Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin, and these shall stand upon Mount Ibal for the cursing, Reuben, Gad and Asher and Zebulun and Dan and Naftali. And the Levites shall speak with a loud voice and say to every man of Israel, Cursed be the man who makes a statue or a casting hateful to the Lord, the product of the hands of a mechanic and sets it up in secret. Then all the people shall answer and say, He shall be. Cursed be whoever insults his father or his mother, then all the people shall say, He shall be. Cursed be whoever removes his neighbor's landmark, then all the people shall say, He shall be. Cursed be whoever misdirects a blind man in his road, then all the people shall say, He shall be. Cursed be whoever refuses justice to the foreigner, orphan or widow, then all the people shall say, He shall be. Cursed be whoever commits adultery with his father's wives who raises the covering of his father, then all the people shall say, he shall be. Cursed be whoever copulates with any beast, then all the people shall say, he shall be. Cursed be whoever fornicates with his sister the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother, then all the people shall say, he shall be. Cursed be whoever fornicates with his mother-in-law, then all the people shall say, he shall be. Cursed be whoever strikes his neighbor in secret, then all the people shall say, he shall be. Cursed be whoever takes a bribe to kill an innocent person, then all the people shall say, he shall be. Cursed be whoever does not stand by the commands of this law to practice them, then all the people shall say, he shall be. CHAPTER 28 But if you attentively listen to the voice of your ever-living God, and take care to practice all the commandments that I command you today, then the ever-living your God will give you superiority over every nation on earth, and all these blessings shall come to you and surround you because you listen to the voice of your ever-living God. You shall be blessed in the city and blessed in the field, blessed in the fruit of your body and blessed in the fruit of your farm and blessed in the fruit of your cow and blessed in the cast of your cattle and breeds of your sheep, blessed in your basket and blessed in your cask, blessed in your going and blessed in your coming. Jehovah will make your opponents to stumble before you. They shall advance by one path and fly from you by seven. The ever-living will command blessing to your barns and to every work of your hand, and will bless you in the country that your ever-living God has given you. Jehovah will establish you as a people sacred to himself as he promised, if you keep the commands of your ever-living God and walk in his paths. And every people of the earth will see that the name of the ever-living has been fixed upon you, and they will fear you when the ever-living causes you to abound in benefits, in the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your fields, in the land which the ever-living promised to your fathers to give you. The ever-living will open his best treasures from the skies for you to give reign to adorn your land and to bless every work of your hand. Many nations shall borrow of you, but you shall not borrow, for the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall continually rise higher and not be depressed, whilst you attend to the commands of your ever-living God which I command you today to preserve and practice, therefore turn not from any of the things that I have commanded you today, yesterday, and before that, but walk after your ever-living God and serve him. But if you will not listen to the voice of your ever-living God to continue to practice the whole of his commands and institutions as I instruct you today, then these curses will come upon and surround you. You shall be cursed in the city and cursed in the field, cursed in your basket and cursed in your cask, cursed in the fruit of your body and fruit of your farms, the cast of your cattle and breeds of your sheep. You shall be cursed in your going and cursed in your coming. The ever-living will send you cursing, blundering and blame in every attempt of your hand till you waste and rapidly perish before the evils assailing you and become desolate. These things shall pursue until you cease from the land that you go to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption and fever and wasting and burning and with sword and blight and jaundice and pursue until you perish. And the skies over your head shall be brass and the ground beneath you iron. The Lord will rain powder on your land and dust from the skies shall fall upon you until you are a desert. The Lord will give you to defeat before your enemies. They shall meet you on a single road, but you shall fly before them by seven roads and be in terror of every government on earth. And your carcasses shall be food to all the birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth and none will drive them off. And the ever-living will inflict the ulcer of the Mitsarayim upon you and tumors and scurvy and the incurable itch. And the ever-living will afflict you with madness and blindness and bewilderment of heart. And you shall grope for a window as a blind man gropes in the darkness and shall not find your way. And you shall also be wronged and robbed daily and find no defender. You shall wed a wife and another man lie with her. You shall build a house but not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard and not eat of it. They shall kill your ox in your sight but will not allow you to eat of it. They will steal your ass before your face and never return it. Your sheep will be given to your enemies and no one will help you. Your sons and your daughters will be sold to foreign nations. Your eyes shall see it and long for them every day and possess them not. A people whom you have not known shall consume the produce of your farms and all your acquisitions and you shall be plundered and oppressed at every time and be maddened by the sights your eyes shall see. The everliving will inflict you with a bad ulcer on your knees and on your legs which you cannot cure from the sole of your foot to your crown. The everliving will make you and the kings you have raised over yourselves go to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known and there you shall serve vile gods of wood and stone and become a word of reproach and abuse among all the peoples where the everliving drives you. You shall take much seed out to the field and reap little for the locust shall destroy. You shall plant a vineyard but not drink its wine nor collect its grapes for the worm shall consume them. Olive groves shall be in all your fields but you shall not refresh yourselves with oil for the olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters but they shall not be yours but shall go to slavery. The caterpillar shall seize all your trees and the fruits of your fields. The foreigner who is amongst you shall climb up above you from station to station but you shall sink lower and lower. He shall lend to you, he shall be the head and you shall be the tail. And all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and hunt you to destruction because you have not listened to the voice of your everliving god to preserve his commands and the institutions which he ordained for you and which should have been a guide and instruction to you and to your posterity forever. But as you served not your everliving god with delight and gladness of heart in your abundance of all things, in heat and raging thirst and nakedness and want, and an iron yoke shall be put upon your neck until you perish. The everliving will arouse against you a nation from afar flying like an eagle from the end of the earth, a nation whose language you have not heard, a furious nation who will not respect the presence of the old nor pity the young, and it shall devour the produce of your cattle and the produce of your fields until you are ruined, until you shall possess neither corn nor wine nor a calf from your cow nor lamb from your sheep until you are brought to ruin, and you shall be oppressed in all your villages and your walls, towers and fortifications in which you trusted shall be thrown down in the whole country, and you shall be harassed in every village of the land which your everliving god gave to you, and you shall eat the fruit of your body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom your everliving god had given you in the siege and distress with which your enemies shall distress you. The friend who is very dear and delightful to you shall turn his eyes evil to his brother and to the wives of his bosom and to the remainder of his children who are left, to give one from amongst them as food for his children so that the rest may eat from the corpse with him in the siege and distress with which your enemies distress you in all your cities. The delicate lady who allowed not the soul of her foot to touch the earth from delicacy and refinement shall look with evil eyes upon the husband of her bosom and her sons and her daughters and the newborn child that comes on her lap and her children whom she has borne that she may eat them in the absolute famine in secret in the siege and distress with which your enemies shall distress you in your gates. If you do not take care to practice the whole of the things of this law written in this book and to reverence the glory of this magnificent revelation of your everliving god, for the everliving will make your own punishments and the punishments of your posterity astounding by these great inflections and diseases and sicknesses and prostrations, and will turn upon you all the maladies of the mitzerites which you feared when present with them and they shall stick to you, besides numerous diseases and many plagues that are not written in the record of this law. The everliving will bring them upon you until you are desolate and are a small remnant instead of being like the stars of the heavens for number, because you have not listened to the voice of your everliving god, and as the everliving was before delighting over you to benefit you and to increase you, then the everliving will delight to destroy, to desolate, and to bear you away from the ground which you have come to possess, and the everliving will scatter you amongst all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, and there you shall serve vile gods which neither you nor your fathers knew of wood and stone, and amid those heathens you shall have no quiet or comfort to the soles of your feet, but the everliving will give you there a trembling heart and languishing eyes and a wretched spirit, and your life shall be in suspense to you in the present, and you shall tremble night and day and have no certainty for your existence. In the morning you shall say, I wish it were evening, and in the evening you shall exclaim, I wish it were morning, because of the fear of your heart that terrifies you and from foreseeing what your eyes perceive. The everliving will also cause you to return to the Mitsarayim by that mournful way which I have told you never to retrace or to look upon, and you will there offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as men and women slaves, and none will buy you. The following are records of the Covenant that the everliving commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the country of Moab in addition to the Covenant that was recorded with them in Horeb. CHAPTER XXIX Moses accordingly assembled all Israel and said to them, You saw all that the everliving did in your sight in the land of Mitsarayim to Pharaoh and to all his officers and to all his country, their great defeats which your eyes saw, the wonders and the great manifestations upon them, but the everliving did not give you a heart to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear until today. Although you wandered forty years in the desert, you were not deficient in clothing upon yourselves, and your shoes were not stripped from your feet. You did not eat bread or drink wine or beer so that you might learn that I am your everliving God. Then you came to this place and met Sihon, king of Hashban, and Og, king of Bashan, and you advanced to fight and slew them and took their country and give it to be divided by the Rubinites and Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Therefore remember the contents of this Covenant and practice them so that you may reflect upon all you are bound to do. You are today all of you stationed before the everliving your God, your nobles, your governors, your judges and your officials, every man of Israel, your children, your wives and the foreigners who are amongst you, the hewers of wood and drawers of water for you, to assent to the Covenant of your everliving God and to swear to what the everliving your God has agreed with you today so that you may rise up from today to be a people for him and he may be a God to you as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Since it is not I alone who made this Covenant and this confirmation with you that is established here with us today before the everliving our God and which is confirmed to us here today. For you know that we resided in the land of the Mitsarayim and that you were slaves amongst the heathen whom you served and you saw their corruptions and their idols of wood and stone of silver and gold that they have. Take special care to yourselves, man or woman or family or tribe who has a heart from turning today from our everliving God to go and serve the Gods of those heathen, lest there should be a root bearing poison and anguish amongst you. But should anyone listening to the words of this oath say to himself in his heart, I shall prosper, although I walk in the ideas of my heart, for my cup is full when I am thirsty. The everliving will not be ready to forgive him, but the Lord's anger and indignation will smoke at that person and he will heap upon him all that is written in this record and the everliving will wipe his name from under the skies and the Lord will set him apart for evil in every tribe of Israel for all the curses of the Covenant written in the record of this law and the future generations of your sons who may arise after you and the strangers who come from distant countries and see the afflictions of the country and the curses with which the everliving has cursed it, shall exclaim, brimstone and salt burn all the country. It is not sown, does not grow, and produces no vegetation like ruined Sodom and Gomorrah, Adma and Saboyim whom the everliving destroyed in his anger and in his wrath and all the nations shall ask why has the everliving afflicted this land? Why should his great indignation burn so? When they will be answered, because they rejected the Covenant of the everliving, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of the Mitsarayim, and they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they knew not and who could not benefit them. Therefore the anger of the Lord burnt against the country and he caused all the affliction written in this record to come upon it. The everliving will also pluck you up from the ground with violence and with great wrath and fling you into other countries. The secret reasons are with our everliving God, but the revelations are with us and our children forever that we may practice the whole of the decrees of this law. The end of chapters twenty-six through twenty-nine of the book of Deuteronomy. Recording by Mark Penfold.