Study Desk

Do you want the Lord to make you successful? Do you want your children to be successful even after you are gone? Then do what pleases the Lord and don't eat blood.

Moses said: People of Israel, you are the Lord 's children, so when you mourn for the dead, you must not cut yourselves or shave your forehead.

Before you attack a town that is far from your land, offer peace to the people who live there. If they surrender and open their town gates, they will become your slaves. But if they reject your offer of peace and try to fight, surround their town and attack. Then, after the Lord helps you capture it, kill all the men. Take the women and children as slaves and keep the livestock and everything else of value.

Moses said to Israel: Parents must not be put to death for crimes committed by their children, and children must not be put to death for crimes committed by their parents. Don't put anyone to death for someone else's crime.

You will have many children. You will harvest large crops, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats will produce many young.

The Lord will give you a lot of children and make sure that your animals give birth to many young. The Lord promised your ancestors that this land would be yours, and he will make it produce large crops for you.

You'll have only a few children, your crops will be small, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats won't produce many young.

They won't show any mercy, and they will have no respect for old people or pity for children.

Because of hunger, a man who had been gentle and kind will eat his own children and refuse to share the meal with his brother or wife or with his other children.

A woman may have grown up in such luxury that she never had to put a foot on the ground. But times will be so bad that she will secretly eat both her newborn baby and the afterbirth, without sharing any with her husband or her other children.

So Moses finished telling the Israelites what they had to do in order to keep the agreement the Lord was making with them in Moab, which was in addition to the one the Lord had made with them at Mount Sinai. Moses called the nation of Israel together and told them: When you were in Egypt, you saw the Lord perform great miracles that caused trouble for the king, his officials, and everyone else in the country. He has even told you, "For forty years I, the Lord , led you through the desert, but your clothes and your sandals didn't wear out, and I gave you special food. I did these things so you would realize that I am your God." But the Lord must give you a change of heart before you truly understand what you have seen and heard. When we first camped here, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan attacked, but we defeated them. Then we captured their land and divided it among the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh. Moses said: Israel, the Lord has made an agreement with you, and if you keep your part, you will be successful in everything you do. Today everyone in our nation is standing here in the Lord 's presence, including leaders and officials, parents and children, and even those foreigners who cut wood and carry water for us. We are at this place of worship to promise that we will keep our part of the agreement with the Lord our God. In this agreement, the Lord promised that you would be his people and that he would be your God. He first made this promise to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and today the Lord is making this same promise to you. But it isn't just for you; it is also for your descendants. When we lived in Egypt, you saw the Egyptians worship disgusting idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold. Then as we traveled through other nations, you saw those people worship other disgusting idols. So make sure that everyone in your tribe remains faithful to the Lord and never starts worshiping gods of other nations. If even one of you worships idols, you will be like the root of a plant that produces bitter, poisonous fruit. You may be an Israelite and know all about the Lord 's agreement with us, but he won't bless you if you rebel against him. You may think you can get away with it, but you will cause the rest of Israel to be punished along with you. The Lord will be furious, and instead of forgiving you, he will separate you from the other tribes. Then he will destroy you, by piling on you all the curses in The Book of God's Law, and you will be forgotten forever. The Lord will strike your country with diseases and disasters. Your descendants and foreigners from distant countries will see that your land has become a scorching desert of salt and sulfur, where nothing is planted, nothing sprouts, and nothing grows. It will be as lifeless as the land around the cities of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, after the Lord became angry and destroyed them. People from other nations will ask, "Why did the Lord destroy this country? Why was he so furious?" And they will be given this answer: Our ancestors worshiped the Lord , but after he brought them out of Egypt and made an agreement with them, they rejected the agreement and decided to worship gods that had never helped them. The Lord had forbidden Israel to worship these gods, and so he became furious and punished the land with all the curses in The Book of God's Law. Then he pulled up Israel by the roots and tossed them into a foreign country, where they still are today. The Lord our God hasn't explained the present or the future, but he has commanded us to obey the laws he gave to us and our descendants.

Today everyone in our nation is standing here in the Lord 's presence, including leaders and officials, parents and children, and even those foreigners who cut wood and carry water for us. We are at this place of worship to promise that we will keep our part of the agreement with the Lord our God.

and he will bless you with many children, large herds and flocks, and abundant crops. The Lord will be happy to do good things for you, just as he did for your ancestors.

Everyone must come—men, women, children, and even the foreigners who live in your towns. And each new generation will listen and learn to worship the Lord their God with fear and trembling and to do exactly what is said in God's Law.

But you lie and cheat and are unfaithful to him. You have disgraced yourselves and are no longer worthy to be his children.

You were the Lord 's children, but you made him angry. Then he rejected you

he said, "Always remember this song I have taught you today. And let it be a warning that you must teach your children to obey everything written in The Book of God's Law.

Protecting Israel's agreement with the Lord was more important to you than the life of your father or mother, or brothers or sisters, or your own children.

The Lord 's servant Moses said that the Lord our God has given you land here on the east side of the Jordan River, where you could live in peace. Your wives and children and your animals can stay here in the land Moses gave you. But all of you that can serve in our army must pick up your weapons and lead the men of the other tribes across the Jordan River. They are your relatives, so you must help them

Someday your children will ask, "Why are these rocks here?" Then you can tell them how the water stopped flowing when the chest was being carried across the river. These rocks will always remind our people of what happened here today.