<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" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">Now pay attention to all the commandments<n id="1" /> I am giving<n id="2" /> you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed,<n id="3" />

Then the anger of the <sc>Lordsc> will erupt<n id="1" /> against you and he will close up the sky<n id="2" /> so that it does not rain. The land will not yield its produce, and you will soon be removed<n id="3" /> from the good land that the Lord<n id="4" /> is about to give you.

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,

You must by all means destroy<n id="1" /> all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods &#8211; on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.<n id="2" />

However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger.<n id="1" /> (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you).

<t /><p class="bodytext">If a fellow Israelite<n id="1" /> from one of your villages<n id="2" /> in the land that the <sc>Lordsc> your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive<n id="3" /> to his impoverished condition.<n id="4" />

Three times a year all your males must appear before the <sc>Lordsc> your God in the place he chooses for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Temporary Shelters; and they must not appear before him<n id="1" /> empty-handed.

It must be with him constantly and he must read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to revere the <sc>Lordsc> his God and observe all the words of this law and these statutes and carry them out.

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

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.

and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water,<n id="1" /> to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown.<n id="2" /> There at the wadi they are to break the heifer&#8217;s neck.

discard the clothing she was wearing when captured,<n id="1" /> and stay<n id="2" /> in your house, lamenting for her father and mother for a full month. After that you may have sexual relations<n id="3" /> with her and become her husband and she your wife.

Look down from your holy dwelling place in heaven and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us, just as you promised our ancestors &#8211; a land flowing with milk and honey.&#8221;p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">&#8220;The <sc>Lordsc> will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you<n id="1" /> in everything you undertake<n id="2" /> until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me.<n id="3" />

<t /><p class="bodytext"><v id="(28:69)" /><n id="1" /> These are the words of the covenant that the <sc>Lordsc> commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.<n id="2" />p>

When such a person<n id="1" /> hears the words of this oath he secretly<n id="2" /> blesses himself<n id="3" /> and says, &#8220;I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.&#8221;<n id="4" /> This will destroy<n id="5" /> the watered ground with the parched.<n id="6" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">Then Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the Levitical priests, who carry the ark of the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s covenant, and to all Israel&#8217;s elders.

when all Israel comes to appear before the <sc>Lordsc> your God in the place he chooses, you must read this law before them<n id="1" /> within their hearing.

Then their children, who have not known this law,<n id="1" /> will also hear about and learn to fear the <sc>Lordsc> your God for as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.&#8221;p>