“Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other.

‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with ¹  his father’s former wife, ²  for he dishonors his father.’ ³  Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

‘Cursed is the one who has sexual relations with his sister, the daughter of either his father or mother.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

Of Levi he said: Your Thummim and Urim ¹  belong to your godly one, ²  whose authority you challenged at Massah, ³  and with whom you argued at the waters of Meribah. ⁴ 

If a fellow Israelite ¹  from one of your villages ²  in the land that the Lord your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive ³  to his impoverished condition. ⁴ 

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

Instead, the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy ¹  is one of hills and valleys, a land that drinks in water from the rains, ² 

Every one of you must give as you are able, ¹  according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

At that time we seized all his cities and put every one of them ¹  under divine judgment, ²  including even the women and children; we left no survivors.

The Lord will judge his people, and will change his plans concerning ¹  his servants; when he sees that their power has disappeared, and that no one is left, whether confined or set free.

I furthermore admonished your judges at that time that they ¹  should pay attention to issues among your fellow citizens ²  and judge fairly, ³  whether between one citizen and another ⁴  or a citizen and a resident foreigner. ⁵ 

Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you – in one of your villages ¹  that the Lord your God is giving you – who sins before the Lord your God ²  and breaks his covenant

Suppose he goes with someone else ¹  to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax ²  to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose ³  from the handle and strikes ⁴  his fellow worker ⁵  so hard that he dies. The person responsible ⁶  may then flee to one of these cities to save himself. ⁷ 

Be strong and courageous! Do not fear or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He will not fail you or abandon you!”

Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will ¹  from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, ²  to the place the Lord chooses

Now this is the law pertaining to one who flees there in order to live, ¹  if he has accidentally killed another ²  without hating him at the time of the accident. ³ 

Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind ¹  on the earth, and ask ²  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.

If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, ¹  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ² 

‘Cursed is the one ¹  who makes a carved or metal image – something abhorrent ²  to the Lord, the work of the craftsman ³  – and sets it up in a secret place.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ ⁴ 

Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. ¹