At that time I instructed you as follows: “The Lord your God has given you this land for your possession. You warriors are to cross over before your fellow Israelites ¹  equipped for battle.

You must fight ¹  until the Lord gives your countrymen victory ²  as he did you and they take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them on the other side of the Jordan River. Then each of you may return to his own territory that I have given you.”

Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances ¹  I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ²  is giving you.

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ¹  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ²  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ³  annihilated.

But as for you, remain here with me so I can declare to you all the commandments, ¹  statutes, and ordinances that you are to teach them, so that they can carry them out in the land I am about to give them.” ² 

When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, ¹  Girgashites, ²  Amorites, ³  Canaanites, ⁴  Perizzites, ⁵  Hivites, ⁶  and Jebusites, ⁷  seven ⁸  nations more numerous and powerful than you –

You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ³  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ⁴ 

Understand today that the Lord your God who goes before you is a devouring fire; he will defeat and subdue them before you. You will dispossess and destroy them quickly just as he ¹  has told you.

And when he ¹  sent you from Kadesh-Barnea and told you, “Go up and possess the land I have given you,” you rebelled against the Lord your God ²  and would neither believe nor obey him.

For the land where you are headed ¹  is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, a land where you planted seed and which you irrigated by hand ²  like a vegetable garden.

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to possess, you must pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ¹ 

These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ¹  has given you to possess. ² 

You must by all means destroy ¹  all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ² 

When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, “I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,”

Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

You may lend with interest to a foreigner, but not to your fellow Israelite; if you keep this command the Lord your God will bless you in all you undertake in the land you are about to enter to possess.

So when the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies who surround you in the land he ¹  is giving you as an inheritance, ²  you must wipe out the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven ³  – do not forget! ⁴ 

This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he ¹  will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess.

What ¹  I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. ² 

I declare to you this very day that you will certainly ¹  perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. ²