how they met you along the way and cut off all your stragglers in the rear of the march when you were exhausted and tired; they were unafraid of God.<n id="1" />

Today you have declared the <sc>Lordsc> to be your God, and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commandments, and ordinances, and obey him.

The <sc>Lordsc> will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments<n id="1" /> and obey him.<n id="2" />

<p class="poetry">As for the Rock,<n id="1" /> his work is perfect,p> <p class="poetry">for all his ways are just.p> <p class="poetry">He is a reliable God who is never unjust,p> <p class="poetry">he is fair<n id="2" /> and upright.p>

Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the <sc>Lordsc> our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.

So all of you approached me and said, &#8220;Let&#8217;s send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there.&#8221;

and in the desert, where you saw him<n id="1" /> carrying you along like a man carries his son. This he did everywhere you went until you came to this very place.&#8221;

Remember the whole way by which he<n id="1" /> has brought you these forty years through the desert<n id="2" /> so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

And he said to me, &#8220;Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image.&#8221;<n id="1" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">Now, Israel, what does the <sc>Lordsc> your God require of you except to revere him,<n id="1" /> to obey all his commandments,<n id="2" /> to love him, to serve him<n id="3" /> with all your mind and being,<n id="4" />

For if you carefully observe all of these commandments<n id="1" /> I am giving you<n id="2" /> and love the <sc>Lordsc> your God, live according to his standards,<n id="3" /> and remain loyal to him,

and the curse if you pay no attention<n id="1" /> to his<n id="2" /> commandments and turn from the way I am setting before<n id="3" /> you today to pursue<n id="4" /> other gods you have not known.

When he<n id="1" /> blesses you, if the<n id="2" /> place where he chooses to locate his name is distant,

Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so,<n id="1" /> for the <sc>Lordsc> has said you must never again return that way.

Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him,<n id="1" /> and kill him,<n id="2" /> though this is not a capital case<n id="3" /> since he did not hate him at the time of the accident.

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments<n id="1" /> I am giving<n id="2" /> you today (namely, to love the <sc>Lordsc> your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities<n id="3" /> to these three.

<p class="bodytext">If you happen to notice a bird&#8217;s nest along the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs with the mother bird sitting on them,<n id="1" /> you must not take the mother from the young.<n id="2" />

for they did not meet you with food and water on the way as you came from Egypt, and furthermore, they hired<n id="1" /> Balaam son of Beor of Pethor in Aram Naharaim to curse you.

You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do;<n id="1" /> you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you.

Then the <sc>Lordsc> will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.&#8221;p>