Deuteronomy 13:5

13:5 As for that prophet or dreamer, ¹  he must be executed because he encouraged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, redeeming you from that place of slavery, and because he has tried to entice you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to go. In this way you must purge out evil from within. ² 

Deuteronomy 29:18

29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. ³ 

Deuteronomy 29:25

29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 31:16-17

31:16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, ⁴  and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they ⁵  are going. They ⁶  will reject ⁷  me and break my covenant that I have made with them. ⁸  31:17 At that time ⁹  my anger will erupt against them ¹⁰  and I will abandon them and hide my face from them until they are devoured. Many disasters and distresses will overcome ¹¹  them ¹²  so that they ¹³  will say at that time, ‘Have not these disasters ¹⁴  overcome us ¹⁵  because our ¹⁶  God is not among us ¹⁷ ?’

Deuteronomy 32:15

Israel’s Rebellion

32:15 But Jeshurun ¹⁸  became fat and kicked,

you ¹⁹  got fat, thick, and stuffed!

Then he deserted the God who made him,

and treated the Rock who saved him with contempt.

Deuteronomy 33:17

33:17 May the firstborn of his bull bring him honor,

and may his horns be those of a wild ox;

with them may he gore all peoples,

all the far reaches of the earth.

They are the ten thousands of Ephraim, ²⁰ 

and they are the thousands of Manasseh.

¹ tn Heb “or dreamer of dreams.” See note on this expression in v. 1.

² tn Heb “your midst” (so NAB, NRSV). The severity of the judgment here (i.e., capital punishment) is because of the severity of the sin, namely, high treason against the Great King. Idolatry is a violation of the first two commandments (Deut 5:6-10) as well as the spirit and intent of the Shema (Deut 6:4-5).

³ tn Heb “yielding fruit poisonous and wormwood.” The Hebrew noun לַעֲנָה (la’anah) literally means “wormwood” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB), but is used figuratively for anything extremely bitter, thus here “fruit poisonous and bitter.”

⁴ tn Heb “lie down with your fathers” (so NASB); NRSV “ancestors.”

⁵ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style. The third person singular also occurs in the Hebrew text twice more in this verse, three times in v. 17, once in v. 18, five times in v. 20, and four times in v. 21. Each time it is translated as third person plural for stylistic reasons.

⁶ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

⁷ tn Or “abandon” (TEV, NLT).

⁸ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

⁹ tn Heb “on that day.” This same expression also appears later in the verse and in v. 18.

¹⁰ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

¹¹ tn Heb “find,” “encounter.”

¹² tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

¹³ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

¹⁴ tn Heb “evils.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

¹⁶ tn Heb “my.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

¹⁸ tn To make the continuity of the referent clear, some English versions substitute “Jacob” here (NAB, NRSV) while others replace “Jeshurun” with “Israel” (NCV, CEV, NLT) or “the Lord’s people” (TEV).

¹⁹ tc The LXX reads the third person masculine singular (“he”) for the MT second person masculine singular (“you”), but such alterations are unnecessary in Hebrew poetic texts where subjects fluctuate frequently and without warning.

²⁰ sn Ephraim and Manasseh were the sons of Joseph who became founders of the two tribes into which Joseph’s descendants were split (Gen 48:19-20). Jacob’s blessing granted favored status to Ephraim; this is probably why Ephraim is viewed here as more numerous than Manasseh.