“Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them,

If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, ¹  you must not chop down its trees, ²  for you may eat fruit ³  from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! ⁴ 

Stand aside ¹  and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, ²  and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.”

When you cross the Jordan River ¹  to the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must erect great stones and cover ²  them with plaster.

So when you cross the Jordan you must erect on Mount Ebal ¹  these stones about which I am commanding you today, and you must cover them with plaster.

But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ¹  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ²  them.

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.

When you came to this place King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out to make war and we defeated them.

He ¹  commanded them: “At the end of seven years, at the appointed time of the cancellation of debts, ²  at the Feast of Temporary Shelters, ³ 

Then you must build an altar there to the Lord your God, an altar of stones – do not use an iron tool on them.

Commission ¹  Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, because he will lead these people over and will enable them to inherit the land you will see.”

And he revealed to you the covenant ¹  he has commanded you to keep, the ten commandments, ²  writing them on two stone tablets.

I will write on the tablets the same words ¹  that were on the first tablets you broke, and you must put them into the ark.”

Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things ¹  the Lord your God is about to drive them out ²  from before you.

When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he ¹  is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses,

who justly treats ¹  the orphan and widow, and who loves resident foreigners, giving them food and clothing.

you must bring the two of them to the gate of that city and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry out though in the city and the man because he violated ¹  his neighbor’s fiancée; ²  in this way you will purge ³  evil from among you.

As for the Avvites ¹  who lived in settlements as far west as Gaza, Caphtorites ²  who came from Crete ³  destroyed them and settled down in their place.)

Moreover, because he loved ¹  your ancestors, he chose their ²  descendants who followed them and personally brought you out of Egypt with his great power

by serving other gods and worshiping them – the sun, ¹  moon, or any other heavenly bodies which I have not permitted you to worship. ²