The heavens – indeed the highest heavens – belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it.

Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

The Lord your God has increased your population to the point that you are now as numerous as the very stars of the sky.

When your ancestors went down to Egypt, they numbered only seventy, but now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.

Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off.

Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

When you look up to the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars – the whole heavenly creation – you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, for the Lord your God has assigned them to all the people of the world.

Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has ever been such a great thing as this, or even a rumor of it.

This very day I will begin to fill all the people of the earth with dread and to terrify them when they hear about you. They will shiver and shake in anticipation of your approach.”

You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, a mountain ablaze to the sky above it and yet dark with a thick cloud.

From heaven he spoke to you in order to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire from which you also heard his words.

He will hand over their kings to you and you will erase their very names from memory. Nobody will be able to resist you until you destroy them.

Stand aside and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.”

Instead, the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy is one of hills and valleys, a land that drinks in water from the rains,

so that your days and those of your descendants may be extended in the land which the Lord promised to give to your ancestors, like the days of heaven itself.

by serving other gods and worshiping them – the sun, moon, or any other heavenly bodies which I have not permitted you to worship.

The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, because you will have disobeyed the Lord your God.

Gather to me all your tribal elders and officials so I can speak to them directly about these things and call the heavens and the earth to witness against them.

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will surely and swiftly be removed from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be annihilated.