The Wilderness Years

I have caused to testify against you this day the heavens and the earth, that ye do perish utterly hastily from off the land whither ye are passing over the Jordan to possess it; ye do not prolong days upon it, but are utterly destroyed;

and Jehovah hath scattered you among the peoples, and ye have been left few in number among the nations, whither Jehovah leadeth you,

and ye have served there gods, work of man's hands, wood and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

`And--ye have sought from thence Jehovah thy God, and hast found, when thou seekest Him with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,

in distress being to thee, and all these things have found thee, in the latter end of the days, and thou hast turned back unto Jehovah thy God, and hast hearkened to His voice;

for a merciful God is Jehovah thy God; He doth not fail thee, nor destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which He hath sworn to them.

`For, ask, I pray thee, at the former days which have been before thee, from the day that God prepared man on the earth, and from the one end of the heavens even unto the other end of the heavens, whether there hath been as this great thing--or hath been heard like it?

Hath a people heard the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, thou--and doth live?

Or hath God tried to go in to take to Himself, a nation from the midst of a nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a strong hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors--according to all that Jehovah your God hath done to you, in Egypt, before your eyes?

Thou, thou hast been shewn it , to know that Jehovah He is God; there is none else besides Him.

`From the heavens He hath caused thee to hear His voice, to instruct thee, and on earth He hath shewed thee His great fire, and His words thou hast heard out of the midst of the fire.

`And because that He hath loved thy fathers, He doth also fix on their seed after them, and doth bring thee out, in His presence, by His great power, from Egypt:

to dispossess nations greater and stronger than thou, from thy presence, to bring thee in to give to thee their land--an inheritance, as at this day.

`And thou hast known to-day, and hast turned it back unto thy heart, that Jehovah He is God, in the heavens above, and on the earth beneath--there is none else;

and thou hast kept His statutes and His commands which I am commanding thee to-day, so that it is well to thee, and to thy sons after thee, and so that thou prolongest days on the ground which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee--all the days.'

Then Moses separateth three cities beyond the Jordan, towards the sun-rising,

for the fleeing thither of the man-slayer, who slayeth his neighbour unknowingly, and he is not hating him heretofore, and he hath fled unto one of these cities, and he hath lived:

Bezer, in the wilderness, in the land of the plain, of the Reubenite; and Ramoth, in Gilead, of the Gadite; and Golan, in Bashan, of the Manassahite.

And this is the law which Moses hath set before the sons of Israel;

these are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses hath spoken unto the sons of Israel, in their coming out of Egypt,

beyond the Jordan, in the valley over-against Beth-Peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorite, who is dwelling in Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel have smitten, in their coming out of Egypt,

and they possess his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorite who are beyond the Jordan, towards the sun-rising;

from Aroer, which is by the edge of the brook Arnon, even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon--

and all the plain beyond the Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.

And Moses calleth unto all Israel, and saith unto them, `Hear, Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I am speaking in your ears to-day, and ye have learned them, and have observed to do them.