Deuteronomy 31:1-30
31 ** And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel;
2 and he said to them “I am a hundred and twenty years old today, I can no longer go out or in, and Jehovah has said to me ‘You are not to cross this Jordan.’
3 Your God Jehovah, he is crossing before you; he will root out these nations before you and you shall have their possessions. Joshuaʽ, he is crossing before you, as Jehovah promised.
4 And Jehovah will do to them as he did to Kings Sihon and ʽOg of the Amorites and to their country, whom he rooted out; and
5 Jehovah will give them up to your conquest, and you shall treat them in full conformity with the orders I have given you.
6 Courage, and do your best; do not be afraid nor stand in awe of them, because it is your God Jehovah who goes with you; he will not neglect you nor abandon you.”
7 * And Moses called Joshuaʽ and said to him before the eyes of all Israel “Courage, and do your best, because it is you that are to bring this people to the country Jehovah swore to their fathers to give to them, and it is you that are to assign it to them,
8 and it is Jehovah who goes before you; he will be with you, he will not neglect you nor abandon you; do not be afraid nor dismayed.”
9 And Moses wrote down this code and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of Jehovah’s covenant, and to all the elders of Israel.
10 And Moses gave them the command “Once in seven years, at the period of the year of remission, at the feast of booths,
11 * when all Israel come to appear before your God Jehovah at the place he chooses, you shall read this code in the presence and hearing of all Israel,
12 assembling the people, men and women and children and your immigrants who live in your localities, in order that they may hear and may learn and fear your God Jehovah and take care to live up to all the clauses of this code;
13 and their sons who had not known shall hear and learn to fear your God Jehovah all the time you are alive on the soil you are crossing the Jordan to to take possession of it”
14 And Jehovah said to Moses “Here your time for dying has almost come; call Joshuaʽ, and you and he take your stand at the Tent of Meeting, and I will commission him.” And Moses and Joshuaʽ took their stand at the Tent of Meeting,
15 and Jehovah appeared in the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood at the door of the Tent.
16 * And Jehovah said to Moses “Here you are to go to rest with your fathers, and this people will start out and prostitute themselves to follow foreign gods, and abandon me and break my covenant that I have made with them;
17 and I shall be angry with them in that day and abandon them and veil my face from them, and they will be for eating up, and great mischiefs and distresses will come upon them; and they will think in that day ‘It must be because we do not have our God among us that these mischiefs have come upon us.’
18 But I shall be veiling my face from them in that day because of all the mischiefs they have done in that they turned to other gods.
19 And now write down this song and teach it to the sons of Israel, put it in their mouths, in order that I may have this song as a witness against the sons of Israel.
20 For I will bring them to the soil I swore to their fathers, that runs milk and honey, and they will eat their fill and fatten and turn to other gods and worship them and treat me with contempt and break my covenant;
21 and when great mischiefs and distresses come upon them this song shall testify before them as a witness, because it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their descendants. For I know their drift that they are acting on today before I have brought them into the country I swore to.”
22 And Moses wrote this song on that day and taught it to the sons of Israel.
23 And he commissioned Joshuaʽ the son of Nun and said “Courage, and do your best, because it is you that are to bring the sons of Israel to the country I swore to them; and I will be with you.”
24 * And when Moses finished writing the words of this code in a book, clear to the end,
25 Moses gave the Levites who carried the ark of Jehovah’s covenant the order
26 * “Take this book of the code and place it beside the ark of Jehovah’s covenant to be a witness there against your nation;
27 for I know your disobedience and hard-neckedness. Here while I am still alive with you today you have been disobedient toward Jehovah; how much more after my death!
28 Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your marshals and let me speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and the earth to witness against them,
29 because I know after my death you will be vicious and turn off from the road I commanded you to follow, and mischief will meet you in future days because you do what displeases Jehovah, provoking him with your handiwork.”
30 And Moses recited in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song clear to the end.
Footnotes
^ 31:1 Var. And Moses went and spoke
^ 31:1 Var. speaking these words
^ 31:7 Var. to go in with this people into the country
^ 31:11 Conj.* (or codd.) come to see your God Jehovah’s face at
^ 31:16 Var. to follow the foreign gods of the country they are going into among them, and
^ 31:24 Conj. words of this song in a manuscript
^ 31:26 Conj. this manuscript of the song
