<p class="bodytext">&#8220;The elders<n id="1" /> will listen<n id="2" /> to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, &#8216;The <sc>Lordsc>, the God of the Hebrews, has met<n id="3" /> with us. So now, let us go<n id="4" /> three days&#8217; journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice<n id="5" /> to the <sc>Lordsc> our God.&#8217;

And they said, &#8220;The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us go a three-day journey<n id="1" /> into the desert so that we may sacrifice<n id="2" /> to the <sc>Lordsc> our God, so that he does not strike us with plague or the sword.&#8221;<n id="3" />

<t /><n id="1" /><p class="bodytext">When Pharaoh released<n id="2" /> the people, God did not lead them<n id="3" /> by the way to the land<n id="4" /> of the Philistines,<n id="5" /> although<n id="6" /> that was nearby, for God said,<n id="7" /> &#8220;Lest<n id="8" /> the people change their minds<n id="9" /> and return to Egypt when they experience<n id="10" /> war.&#8221;

Moses told his father-in-law all that the <sc>Lordsc> had done to Pharaoh and to Egypt for Israel&#8217;s sake, and all the hardship<n id="1" /> that had come on them<n id="2" /> along the way, and how<n id="3" /> the <sc>Lordsc> had delivered them.p>

They have quickly turned aside<n id="1" /> from the way that I commanded them &#8211; they have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, &#8216;These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.&#8217;&#8221;p>

Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me<n id="1" /> your way, that I may know you,<n id="2" /> that I may continue to find<n id="3" /> favor in your sight. And see<n id="4" /> that this nation is your people.&#8221;p>

&#8220;Tell the Israelites, &#8216;If any<n id="1" /> of you or of your posterity become ceremonially defiled by touching a dead body, or are on a journey far away, then he may<n id="2" /> observe the Passover to the <sc>Lordsc>.

<p class="bodytext">But<n id="1" /> the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails<n id="2" /> to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people.<n id="3" /> Because he did not bring the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin.<n id="4" />

Please let us pass through<n id="1" /> your country. We will not pass through the fields or through the vineyards, nor will we drink water from any well. We will go by the King&#8217;s Highway;<n id="2" /> we will not turn to the right or the left until we have passed through your region.&#8217;&#8221;<n id="3" />p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">Then God&#8217;s anger was kindled<n id="1" /> because he went, and the angel of the <sc>Lordsc> stood in the road to oppose<n id="2" /> him. Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him.

The angel of the <sc>Lordsc> said to him, &#8220;Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? Look, I came out to oppose you because what you are doing<n id="1" /> is perverse before me.<n id="2" />

Balaam said to the angel of the <sc>Lordsc>, &#8220;I have sinned, for I did not know that you stood against me in the road.<n id="1" /> So now, if it is evil in your sight,<n id="2" /> I will go back home.&#8221;<n id="3" />

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.