Joshua 8:34

²Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. ³He read from it before the wide place that was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those who could understand. The ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

¹⁰Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the feast of booths, ¹¹when all Israel has come to appear before the LORD your God in the place which he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. ¹²Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones, and the foreigners who are within your gates, that they may hear, learn, fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law,

¹On that day they read in the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and it was found written in it that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever,

¹⁴With a loud voice, the Levites shall say to all the men of Israel, ¹⁵‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁶‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁷‘Cursed is he who removes his neighbor’s landmark.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁸‘Cursed is he who leads the blind astray on the road.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

¹⁹‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, fatherless, and widow.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²⁰‘Cursed is he who lies with^[+] his father’s wife, because he dishonors his father’s bed.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²¹‘Cursed is he who lies with any kind of animal.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²²‘Cursed is he who lies with his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²³‘Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²⁴‘Cursed is he who secretly kills his neighbor.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²⁵‘Cursed is he who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

²⁶‘Cursed is he who doesn’t uphold the words of this law by doing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”

⁸This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.

²⁰The LORD will not pardon him, but then the LORD’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under the sky. ²¹The LORD will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

¹“‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up a carved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.

²“‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the LORD.

³“‘If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them, ⁴then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. ⁵Your threshing shall continue until the vintage, and the vintage shall continue until the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

⁶“‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. ⁷You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. ⁸Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

⁹“‘I will have respect for you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you. ¹⁰You shall eat old supplies long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new. ¹¹I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you. ¹²I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people. ¹³I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright.

¹⁴“‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, ¹⁶I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.

¹⁸“‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze. ²⁰Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

²¹“‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. ²²I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.

²³“‘If by these things you won’t be turned back to me, but will walk contrary to me, ²⁴then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. ²⁵I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.

²⁷“‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins. ²⁹You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. ³¹I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. ³²I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it will be astonished at it. ³³I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. ³⁴Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

³⁶“‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. ³⁹Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

⁴⁰“‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me, ⁴¹I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, ⁴²then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. ⁴³The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. ⁴⁵But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.’”

⁴⁶These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.

¹⁵Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil. ¹⁶For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it. ¹⁷But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away and worship other gods, and serve them, ¹⁸I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it. ¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants, ²⁰to love the LORD your God, to obey his voice, and to cling to him; for he is your life, and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

³They stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God.