Study Desk

"Other people will be allowed to take your sons and your daughters. Day after day you will look for your children. You will look for them until your eyes become weak and blind—but you will not find them. And God will not help you.

These people will be cruel. They will not care about old people or show mercy to young children.

You will suffer very much. The enemy will surround your cities. They will not let you have any food. You will get very hungry. You will be so hungry that you will eat your own sons and daughters—you will eat the bodies of the children the Lord your God gave you.

"Even the most kind and gentle man among you will become cruel. He will be cruel to his family, and he will be cruel to his wife he loves so much. And he will be cruel to his children who are still alive.

He will have nothing left to eat, so he will eat his own children. And he will not share that meat with anyone—not even the other people in his own family. All these bad things will happen when your enemy comes to surround your cities and make you suffer.

Your wives and children are here and also the foreigners living among you—the people who cut your wood and bring you water.

The Lord your God will make you successful in everything you do. He will bless you with many children. He will bless your cows—they will have many calves. He will bless your fields—they will grow many good crops. He will be good to you. The Lord will again enjoy doing good for you, the same as he enjoyed doing good for your ancestors.

"Today I am giving you a choice of two ways. And I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses of your choice. You can choose life or death. The first choice will bring a blessing. The other choice will bring a curse. So choose life! Then you and your children will live.

Bring together all the people—the men, the women, the little children, and the foreigners living in your cities. They will hear the teachings, and they will learn to respect the Lord your God. Then they will be able to do everything in this Book of Teachings.

And you are not really his children. You are completely unfaithful to him. You are crooked liars.

So he said, ‘I will turn away from them, then let's see what happens! They are a rebellious people. They are like children who will not learn their lessons.

he said to them, "You must be sure to pay attention to all the commands I tell you today. And you must tell your children to obey completely the commands in this Law.

They were more loyal to you, Lord, than to their own families. They ignored their fathers and mothers. They did not recognize their brothers. They did not pay attention to their children. But they obeyed your commands. They kept your agreement.

"Remember what the Lord 's servant Moses told you. He said that the Lord your God would give you a place to live. So he has given you this land east of the Jordan River. But now you must help your relatives get their land. Your wives and children can stay here with your animals. But all your fighting men must prepare for battle and lead the men of the other tribes across the river.

These rocks will be a sign for you. In the future, your children will ask you, ‘What do these rocks mean?'

Then Joshua told the Israelites, "In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these rocks mean?'

All the Israelites were gathered together there. All the women and children and all the foreigners who lived with the Israelites were there. And Joshua read every command that Moses had given.

So that day Moses made a promise to me. He said, ‘The land where you went will become your land. Your children will own that land forever. I will give you that land because you really believed in the Lord , my God.'

But that is not why we built it. We built it because we were afraid that in the future your descendants might not accept us as part of God's people. So your children might say to our children, ‘You people have no reason to worship the Lord , the God of Israel.

The Lord separated you people of Reuben and Gad from us by giving you the land on the other side of the Jordan River. So you are not part of the Lord 's people.' If your children said that, it might make our children stop worshiping the Lord .