Passage: Deuteronomy 3, 4 (RSV)


Deuteronomy 3


1"Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Ed're-i.
2But the LORD said to me, `Do not fear him; for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon the king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.'
3So the LORD our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people; and we smote him until no survivor was left to him.
4And we took all his cities at that time -- there was not a city which we did not take from them -- sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
5All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides very many unwalled villages.
6And we utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon the king of Heshbon, destroying every city, men, women, and children.
7But all the cattle and the spoil of the cities we took as our booty.
8So we took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon
9(the Sido'nians call Hermon Si'rion, while the Amorites call it Senir),
10all the cities of the tableland and all Gilead and all Bashan, as far as Sal'ecah and Ed're-i, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
11(For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Reph'aim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)
12"When we took possession of this land at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory beginning at Aro'er, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead with its cities;
13the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, that is, all the region of Argob, I gave to the half-tribe of Manas'seh. (The whole of that Bashan is called the land of Reph'aim.
14Ja'ir the Manas'site took all the region of Argob, that is, Bashan, as far as the border of the Gesh'urites and the Ma-ac'athites, and called the villages after his own name, Hav'voth-ja'ir, as it is to this day.)
15To Machir I gave Gilead,
16and to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from Gilead as far as the valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a boundary, as far over as the river Jabbok, the boundary of the Ammonites;
17the Arabah also, with the Jordan as the boundary, from Chin'nereth as far as the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east.
18"And I commanded you at that time, saying, `The LORD your God has given you this land to possess; all your men of valor shall pass over armed before your brethren the people of Israel.
19But your wives, your little ones, and your cattle (I know that you have many cattle) shall remain in the cities which I have given you,
20until the LORD gives rest to your brethren, as to you, and they also occupy the land which the LORD your God gives them beyond the Jordan; then you shall return every man to his possession which I have given you.'
21And I commanded Joshua at that time, `Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings; so will the LORD do to all the kingdoms into which you are going over.
22You shall not fear them; for it is the LORD your God who fights for you.'
23"And I besought the LORD at that time, saying,
24`O Lord GOD, thou hast only begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as thine?
25Let me go over, I pray, and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that goodly hill country, and Lebanon.'
26But the LORD was angry with me on your account, and would not hearken to me; and the LORD said to me, `Let it suffice you; speak no more to me of this matter.
27Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward, and behold it with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan.
28But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him; for he shall go over at the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land which you shall see.'
29So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-pe'or.

Deuteronomy 4


1"And now, O Israel, give heed to the statutes and the ordinances which I teach you, and do them; that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, gives you.
2You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it; that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
3Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Ba'al-pe'or; for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Ba'al of Pe'or;
4but you who held fast to the LORD your God are all alive this day.
5Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land which you are entering to take possession of it.
6Keep them and do them; for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, `Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'
7For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?
8And what great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?
9"Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children --
10how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, `Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children so.'
11And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom.
12Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.
13And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.
14And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.
15"Therefore take good heed to yourselves. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
16beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
18the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.
19And beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.
20But the LORD has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own possession, as at this day.
21Furthermore the LORD was angry with me on your account, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
22For I must die in this land, I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over and take possession of that good land.
23Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a graven image in the form of anything which the LORD your God has forbidden you.
24For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25"When you beget children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a graven image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, so as to provoke him to anger,
26I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess; you will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you.
28And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of men's hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice,
31for the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not fail you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers which he swore to them.
32"For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of.
33Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?
34Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.
36Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you; and on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
37And because he loved your fathers and chose their descendants after them, and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,
38driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as at this day;
39know therefore this day, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
40Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God gives you for ever."
41Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan,
42that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might save his life:
43Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manas'sites.
44This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel;
45these are the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt,
46beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-pe'or, in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt.
47And they took possession of his land and the land of Og the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who lived to the east beyond the Jordan;
48from Aro'er, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, as far as Mount Si'rion (that is, Hermon),
49together with all the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.



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