Axial Commons
Hebrew / JewishChristianity
But if thy heart be turned away, so that thou wilt not hear, and being deceived with error thou adore strange gods, and serve them:
I foretell thee this day that thou shalt perish, and shalt remain but a short time in the land, to which thou shalt pass over the Jordan, and shalt go in to possess it.
I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose therefore life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
And that thou mayst love the Lord thy God, and obey his voice, and adhere to him (for he is thy life, and the length of thy days,) that thou mayst dwell in the land, for which the Lord swore to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give it them.
And Moses went, and spoke all these words to all Israel,
And he said to them: I am this day a hundred and twenty years old, I can no longer go out and come in, especially as the Lord also hath said to me: Thou shalt not pass over this Jordan.
The Lord thy God then will pass over before thee: he will destroy all these nations in thy sight, and thou shalt possess them: and this Josue shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath spoken.
And the Lord shall do to them as he did to Sehon and Og the kings of the Amorrhites, and to their land, and shall destroy them.
Therefore when the Lord shall have delivered these also to you, you shall do in like manner to them as I have commanded you.
Do manfully and be of good heart: fear not, nor be ye dismayed at their sight: for the Lord thy God he himself is thy leader, and will not leave thee nor forsake thee.
And Moses called Josue, and said to him before all Israel: Take courage, and be valiant: for thou shalt bring this people into the land which the Lord swore he would give to their fathers, and thou shalt divide it by lot.
And the Lord who is your leader, he himself will be with thee: he will not leave thee, nor forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.
And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the priests the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the ancients of Israel.
And he commanded them, saying: After seven years, in the year of remission, in the feast of tabernacles,
When all Israel come together, to appear in the sight of the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou shalt read the words of this law before all Israel, in their hearing.
And the people being all assembled together, both men and women, children and strangers, that are within thy gates: that hearing they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and keep, and fulfil all the words of this law:
That their children also, who now are ignorant, may hear, and fear the Lord their God, all the days that they live in the land whither you are going over the Jordan to possess it.
And the Lord said to Moses: Behold the days of thy death are nigh: call Josue, and stand ye in the tabernacle of the testimony, that I may give him a charge. So Moses and Josue went and stood in the tabernacle of the testimony:
And the Lord appeared there in the pillar of a cloud, which stood in the entry of the tabernacle.
And the Lord said to Moses: Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people rising up will go a fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell: there will they forsake me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them,
And my wrath shall be kindled against them in that day: and I will forsake them, and will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured: all evils and afflictions shall find them, so that they shall say in that day: In truth it is because God is not with me, that these evils have found me.
But I will hide, and cover my face in that day, for all the evils which they have done, because they have followed strange gods.
Now therefore write you this canticle, and teach the children of Israel: that they may know it by heart, and sing it by mouth, and this song may be unto me for a testimony among the children of Israel.
For I will bring them into the land, for which I swore to their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey. And when they have eaten, and are full and fat, they will turn away after strange gods, and will serve them: and will despise me, and make void my covenant.
And after many evils and afflictions shall have come upon them, this canticle shall answer them for a testimony, which no oblivion shall take away out of the mouth of their seed. For I know their thoughts, and what they are about to do this day, before that I bring them into the land which I have promised them.
Moses therefore wrote the canticle, and taught it to the children of Israel.
And the Lord commanded Josue the son of Nun, and said: Take courage, and be valiant: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I have promised, and I will be with thee.
Therefore after Moses had wrote the words of this law in a volume, and finished it:
He commanded the Levites, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying:
Take this book, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God: that it may be there for a testimony against thee.
For I know thy obstinacy, and thy most stiff neck. While I am yet living, and going in with you, you have always been rebellious against the Lord: how much more when I shall be dead?
Gather unto me all the ancients of your tribes, and your doctors, and I will speak these words in their hearing, and will call heaven and earth to witness against them.
For I know that, after my death, you will do wickedly, and will quickly turn aside form the way that I have commanded you: and evils shall come upon you in the latter times, when you shall do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him by the works of your hands.
Moses therefore spoke, in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel, the words of this canticle, and finished it even to the end.
Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak, let the earth give ear to the words of my mouth.
Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew, as a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass.
Because I will invoke the name of the Lord: give ye magnificence to our God.
The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments: God is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just and right.
They have sinned against him, and are none of his children in their filth: they are a wicked and perverse generation.
Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee?
Remember the days of old, think upon every generation: ask thy father, and he will declare to thee: thy elders and they will tell thee.
When the Most High divided the nations: when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel.
But the Lord's portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror, and of vast wilderness: he led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye.
As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, he spread his wings, and hath taken him and carried him on his shoulders.
The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange god with him.
He set him upon high land: that he might eat the fruits of the fields, that he might suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the hardest stone,
Butter of the herd, and milk of the sheep with the fat of lambs, and of the rams of the breed of Basan: and goats with the marrow of wheat, and might drink the purest blood of the grape.
The beloved grew fat, and kicked: he grew fat, and thick and gross, he forsook God who made him, and departed from God his saviour.
They provoked him by strange gods, and stirred him up to anger, with their abominations.
They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not.
Thou hast forsaken the God that begot thee, and hast forgotten the Lord that created thee.
The Lord saw, and was moved to wrath: because his own sons and daughters provoked him.
And he said: I will hide my face from them, and will consider what their last end shall be: for it is a perverse generation, and unfaithful children.
They have provoked me with that which was no god, and have angered me with their vanities: and I will provoke them with that which is no people, and will vex them with a foolish nation.
A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell: and shall devour the earth with her increase, and shall burn the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap evils upon them, and will spend my arrows among them.
They shall be consumed with famine, and birds shall devour them with a most bitter bite: I will send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of creatures that trail upon the ground, and of serpents.
Without, the sword shall lay them waste, and terror within, both the young man and the virgin, the sucking child with the man in years.
I said: Where are they? I will make the memory of them to cease from among men.
But for the wrath of the enemies I have deferred it: lest perhaps their enemies might be proud, and should say: Our mighty hand, and not the Lord, hath done all these things.
They are a nation without counsel, and without wisdom.
O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end.
How should one pursue after a thousand, and two chase ten thousand? Was it not, because their God had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?
For our God is not as their gods: our enemies themselves are judges.
Their vines are of the vineyard of Sodom, and of the suburbs of Gomorrha: their grapes are grapes of gall, and their clusters most bitter.
Their wine is the gall of dragons, and the venom of asps, which is incurable.
Are not these things stored up with me, and sealed up in my treasures?
Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide: the day of destruction is at hand, and the time makes haste to come.
The Lord will judge his people, and will have mercy on his servants: he shall see that their hand is weakened, and that they who were shut up have also failed, and they that remained are consumed.
And he shall say: Where are their gods, in whom they trusted?
Of whose victims they ate the fat, and drank the wine of their drink offerings: let them arise and help you, and protect you in your distress.
See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me: I will kill and I will make to live: I will strike, and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will say: I live for ever.
If I shall whet my sword as the lightning, and my hand take hold on judgment: I will render vengeance to my enemies, and repay them that hate me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, of the blood of the slain and of the captivity, of the bare head of the enemies.
Praise his people, ye nations, for he will revenge the blood of his servants: and will render vengeance to their enemies, and he will be merciful to the land of his people.
So Moses came and spoke all the words of this canticle in the ears of the people, and Josue the son of Nun.
And he ended all these words, speaking to all Israel.
And he said to them: Set your hearts on all the words, which I testify to you this day: which you shall command your children to observe and to do, and to fulfil all that is written in this law:
For they are not commanded you in vain, but that every one should live in them, and that doing them you may continue a long time in the land whither you are going over the Jordan to possess it.
And the Lord spoke to Moses the same day, saying:
Go up into this mountain Abarim, (that is to say, of passages,) unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho: and see the land of Chanaan, which I will deliver to the children of Israel to possess, and die thou in the mountain.
When thou art gone up into it thou shalt be gathered to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered to his people:
Because you trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel, at the waters of contradiction, in Cades of the desert of Sin: and you did not sanctify me among the children of Israel.
Thou shalt see the land before thee, which I will give to the children of Israel, but thou shalt not enter into it.
This is the blessing, wherewith the man of God, Moses, blessed the children of Israel, before his death.
And he said: The Lord came from Sinai, and from Seir he rose up to us: he hath appeared from mount Pharan, and with him thousands of saints. In his right hand a fiery law.
He hath loved the people, all the saints are in his hand: and they that approach to his feet, shall receive of his doctrine.
Moses commanded us a law, the inheritance of the multitude of Jacob.
He shall be king with the most right, the princes of the people, being assembled with the tribes of Israel.
Let Ruben live, and not die, and be he small in number.
This is the blessing of Juda. Hear, O Lord, the voice of Juda, and bring him in unto his people: his hands shall fight for him, and he shall be his helper against his enemies.
To Levi also he said: Thy perfection, and thy doctrine be to thy holy man, whom thou hast proved in the temptation, and judged at the waters of contradiction:
Who hath said to his father, and to his mother: I do not know you; and to his brethren: I know you not: and their own children they have not known. These have kept thy word, and observed thy covenant,
Thy judgments, O Jacob, and thy law, O Israel: they shall put incense in thy wrath and holocaust upon thy altar.
Bless, O Lord, his strength, and receive the works of his hands. Strike the backs of his enemies, and let not them that hate him rise.
And to Benjamin he said: The best beloved of the Lord shall dwell confidently in him: as in a bride chamber shall he abide all the day long, and between his shoulders shall be rest.
To Joseph also he said: Of the blessing of the Lord be his land, of the fruits of heaven, and of the dew, and of the deep that lieth beneath.
Of the fruits brought forth by the sun and by the moon.