Study Desk

"For the LORD your God has chosen him, him and his sons from all your tribes, to stand and serve in the name of the LORD forever.

then he shall serve in the name of the LORD his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand there before the LORD.

"When you enter the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable (repulsive) practices of those nations.

"For everyone who does these things is utterly repulsive to the LORD; and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you.

"You shall be blameless (complete, perfect) before the LORD your God.

"For these nations which you shall dispossess listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners and fortune-tellers, but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do so.

"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your countrymen (brothers, brethren). You shall listen to him.

"This is according to all that you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb (Mount Sinai) on the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear the voice of the LORD my God again, nor see this great fire anymore, so that I will not die.'

"When the LORD your God cuts off (destroys) the nations whose land He is giving you, and you dispossess them and live in their cities and in their houses,

you shall designate three cities for yourself in the central area of the land, which the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

"If the LORD your God enlarges your border, as He has sworn to your fathers to do, and gives you all the land which He promised to give to your fathers—

if you keep and carefully observe all these commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the LORD your God, and to walk [that is, to live each and every day] always in His ways—then you shall add three more cities [of refuge] for yourself, besides these three,

so that innocent blood will not be shed [by blood avengers] in your land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and blood guilt will not be on you [for the death of an innocent man].

"You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark, which the forefathers [who first divided the territory] have set, in the land which you will inherit in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

"When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you.

for the LORD your God is He who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.'

"When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike down all the men in it with the edge of the sword.

"Only the women and the children and the animals and everything that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you.

"Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes.

"But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the LORD your God has commanded you,