Study Desk

"You shall not eat it, so that all may be well with you and with your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the sight of the LORD.

"Be careful to listen to all these words which I am commanding you, so that it may be well with you and with your children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.

"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.

"Their children of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.

"The fathers shall not be put to death for [the sins of] their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; [only] for his own sin shall anyone be put to death.

"The man who is most refined and well-bred among you will be cruel and hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain,

so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, because he has nothing else left, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities.

and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her legs and toward the children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.

"Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it, will say,

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things which are revealed and disclosed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may do all of the words of this law.

and you have returned to the LORD your God and have listened to and obeyed His voice with all your heart and with all your soul, in accordance with everything that I am commanding you today, you and your children,

"Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) within your cities, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], and be careful to obey all the words of this law.

"Their children, who have not known [the law], will hear and learn to fear [and worship] the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess."

So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the children of Israel.

"They (Israel) have acted corruptly toward Him. They are not His children, because of their [moral] defect; But are a perverse and crooked generation.

he said to them, "Take to heart all the words of warning which I am speaking to you today; and you shall command your children to observe them carefully—to do all the words of this law.

"For you shall see the land opposite you from a distance, but you shall not go there, into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel."

"Your wives, your children, and your cattle shall [be allowed to] stay in the land which Moses gave you on this [eastern] side of the Jordan, but you shall go across [the river] before your brothers (the other tribes) armed for battle, all your brave warriors, and you shall help them [conquer and take possession of their land],

Joshua got up early in the morning; then he and all the children of Israel set out from Shittim and came to the Jordan, and they spent the night there before they crossed [the river].

so that this may be a sign among you; when your children ask later, 'What do these stones mean to you?'