Deuteronomy 31–34

Joshua Takes Moses’ Place

31Then Moses went and spoke these words to all the Israelites: ²“I am now one hundred twenty years old, and I cannot lead you anymore. The Lord told me I would not cross the Jordan River; ³the Lord your God will lead you across himself. He will destroy those nations for you, and you will take over their land. Joshua will also lead you across, as the Lord has said. ⁴The Lord will do to those nations what he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, when he destroyed them and their land. ⁵The Lord will give those nations to you; do to them everything I told you. ⁶Be strong and brave. Don’t be afraid of them and don’t be frightened, because the Lord your God will go with you. He will not leave you or forget you.”

⁷Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in front of the people, “Be strong and brave, because you will lead these people into the land the Lord promised to give their ancestors, and help them take it as their own. ⁸The Lord himself will go before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forget you. Don’t be afraid and don’t worry.”

Moses Writes the Teachings

⁹So Moses wrote down these teachings and gave them to the priests and all the elders of Israel. (The priests are the sons of Levi, who carry the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord.) ^10–11Then Moses commanded them: “Read these teachings for all Israel to hear at the end of every seven years, which is the year to cancel what people owe. Do it during the Feast of Shelters, when all the Israelites will come to appear before the Lord your God and stand at the place he will choose. ¹²Gather all the people: the men, women, children, and foreigners living in your towns so that they can listen and learn to respect the Lord your God and carefully obey everything in this law. ¹³Since their children do not know this law, they must hear it. They must learn to respect the Lord your God for as long as they live in the land you are crossing the Jordan River to take for your own.”

The Lord Calls Moses and Joshua

¹⁴The Lord said to Moses, “Soon you will die. Get Joshua and come to the Meeting Tent so that I may command him.” So Moses and Joshua went to the Meeting Tent.

¹⁵The Lord appeared at the Meeting Tent in a cloud; the cloud stood over the entrance of the Tent. ¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses, “You will soon die. Then these people will not be loyal to me but will worship the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will leave me, breaking the Agreement I made with them. ¹⁷Then I will become very angry at them, and I will leave them. I will turn away from them, and they will be destroyed. Many terrible things will happen to them. Then they will say, ‘It is because God is not with us that these terrible things are happening.’ ¹⁸I will surely turn away from them then, because they have done wrong and have turned to other gods.

¹⁹“Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites. Then have them sing it, because it will be my witness against them. ²⁰When I bring them into the land I promised to their ancestors, a fertile land, they will eat as much as they want and get fat. Then they will turn to other gods and serve them. They will reject me and break my Agreement. ²¹Then when many troubles and terrible things happen to them, this song will testify against them, because the song will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they plan to do, even before I take them into the land I promised them.” ²²So Moses wrote down the song that day, and he taught it to the Israelites.

²³Then the Lord gave this command to Joshua son of Nun: “Be strong and brave, because you will lead the people of Israel to the land I promised them, and I will be with you.”

²⁴After Moses finished writing all the words of the teachings in a book, ²⁵he gave a command to the Levites, who carried the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord. ²⁶He said, “Take this Book of the Teachings and put it beside the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord your God. It must stay there as a witness against you. ²⁷I know how stubborn and disobedient you are. You have disobeyed the Lord while I am alive and with you, and you will disobey even more after I die! ²⁸Gather all the older leaders of your tribes and all your officers to me so that I may say these things for them to hear, and so that I may ask heaven and earth to testify against them. ²⁹I know that after I die you will become completely evil. You will turn away from the commands I have given you. Terrible things will happen to you in the future when you do what the Lord says is evil, and you will make him angry with the idols you have made.”

Moses’ Song

³⁰And Moses spoke this whole song for all the people of Israel to hear:

32Hear, heavens, and I will speak.

Listen, earth, to what I say.

²My teaching will drop like rain;

my words will fall like dew.

They will be like showers on the grass;

they will pour down like rain on young plants.

³I will announce the name of the Lord.

Praise God because he is great!

⁴He is like a rock; what he does is perfect,

and he is always fair.

He is a faithful God who does no wrong,

who is right and fair.

⁵They have done evil against him.

To their shame they are no longer his children;

they are an evil and lying people.

⁶This is not the way to repay the Lord,

you foolish and unwise people.

He is your Father and Maker,

who made you and formed you.

⁷Remember the old days.

Think of the years already passed.

Ask your father and he will tell you;

ask your elders and they will inform you.

⁸God Most High gave the nations their lands,

dividing up the human race.

He set up borders for the people

and even numbered the Israelites.

⁹The Lord took his people as his share,

the people of Jacob as his very own.

¹⁰He found them in a desert,

a windy, empty land.

He surrounded them and brought them up,

guarding them as those he loved very much.

¹¹He was like an eagle building its nest

that flutters over its young.

It spreads its wings to catch them

and carries them on its feathers.

¹²The Lord alone led them,

and there was no foreign god helping him.

¹³The Lord brought them to the heights of the land

and fed them the fruit of the fields.

He gave them honey from the rocks,

bringing oil from the solid rock.

¹⁴There were milk curds from the cows and milk from the flock;

there were fat sheep and goats.

There were sheep and goats from Bashan

and the best of the wheat.

You drank the juice of grapes.

¹⁵Israel grew fat and kicked;

they were fat and full and firm.

They left the God who made them

and rejected the Rock who saved them.

¹⁶They made God jealous with foreign gods

and angry with hateful idols.

¹⁷They made sacrifices to demons, not God,

to gods they had never known,

new gods from nearby,

gods your ancestors did not fear.

¹⁸You left God who is the Rock, your Father,

and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹The Lord saw this and rejected them;

his sons and daughters had made him angry.

²⁰He said, “I will turn away from them

and see what will happen to them.

They are evil people,

unfaithful children.

²¹They used things that are not gods to make me jealous

and worthless idols to make me angry.

So I will use those who are not a nation to make them jealous;

I will use a nation that does not understand to make them angry.

²²My anger has started a fire

that burns down to the place of the dead.

It will burn up the ground and its crops,

and it will set fire to the base of the mountains.

²³“I will pile troubles upon them

and shoot my arrows at them.

²⁴They will be starved and sick,

destroyed by terrible diseases.

I will send them vicious animals

and gliding, poisonous snakes.

²⁵In the streets the sword will kill;

in their homes there will be terror.

Young men and women will die,

and so will babies and gray-haired men.

²⁶I will scatter them as I said,

and no one will remember them.

²⁷But I didn’t want their enemy to brag;

their enemy might misunderstand

and say, ‘We have won!

The Lord has done none of this.’ ”

²⁸Israel has no sense;

they do not understand.

²⁹I wish they were wise and understood this;

I wish they could see what will happen to them.

³⁰One person cannot chase a thousand people,

and two people cannot fight ten thousand

unless their Rock has sold them,

unless the Lord has given them up.

³¹The rock of these people is not like our Rock;

our enemies agree to that.

³²Their vine comes from Sodom,

and their fields are like Gomorrah.

Their grapes are full of poison;

their bunches of grapes are bitter.

³³Their wine is like snake poison,

like the deadly poison of cobras.

³⁴“I have been saving this,

and I have it locked in my storehouses.

³⁵I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them.

Soon their foot will slip,

because their day of trouble is near,

and their punishment will come quickly.”

³⁶The Lord will defend his people

and have mercy on his servants.

He will see that their strength is gone,

that nobody is left, slaves or free.

³⁷Then he will say, “Where are their gods?

Where is the rock they trusted?

³⁸Who ate the fat from their sacrifices,

and who drank the wine of their drink offerings?

Let those gods come to help you!

Let them protect you!

³⁹“Now you will see that I am the one God!

There is no god but me.

I send life and death;

I can hurt, and I can heal.

No one can escape from me.

⁴⁰I raise my hand toward heaven and make this promise:

As surely as I live forever,

⁴¹I will sharpen my flashing sword,

and I will take it in my hand to judge.

I will punish my enemies

and pay back those who hate me.

⁴²My arrows will be covered with their blood;

my sword will eat their flesh.

The blood will flow from those who are killed and the captives.

The heads of the enemy leaders will be cut off.”

⁴³Be happy, nations, with his people,

because he will repay you for the blood of his servants.

He will punish his enemies,

and he will remove the sin of his land and people.

⁴⁴Moses came with Joshua son of Nun, and they spoke all the words of this song for the people to hear. ⁴⁵When Moses finished speaking these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶he said to them: “Pay careful attention to all the…