World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 31
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1 went and spoke these words to all Israel. He said to them, "I am one hundred twenty years old today. I can no more go out and come in. has said to me, 'You shall not go over this Jordan.' your himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. will go over before you, as has spoken. will do to them as he did to and to , the kings of the , and to their land, when he destroyed them. will them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the which I have commanded you. Be strong and courageous. Don't be afraid or scared of them, for your himself is who goes with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you." called to , and said to him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land which has to their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to it. himself is who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you. Don't be afraid. Don't be discouraged." wrote this law and it to the priests the , who bore the , and to all the . commanded them, saying, "At the end of every seven years, in the of the year of , in the feast of , when all Israel has come to appear before your in the place which he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones, and the who are within your , that they may hear, learn, your , and observe to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known, may hear and learn to your , as long as you live in the land where you go over to possess it." said to , "Behold, your days approach that you must . Call , and present yourselves in the , that I may commission him." and went, and presented themselves in the . appeared in the Tent in a , and of cloud stood over the Tent's door. said to , "Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my which I have made with them. Then my shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, 'Haven't these evils come on us because our is not among us?' I will surely hide in that day for all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods. "Now therefore write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the . Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a for me against the . For when I have brought them into the land which I to their fathers, , and they have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods, and them, and despise me, and break my . It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a ; for it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their ; for I know their ways and what they are doing today, before I have brought them into the land which I promised them." So wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the . He commissioned the son of , and said, "Be strong and courageous; for you shall bring the into the land which I to them. I will be with you." When had finished writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, commanded the , who bore the , saying, "Take this book of , and put it by the side of the your , that it may be there for a against you. For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. Behold, while I am yet alive with you today, you have been rebellious against . How much more after my ? Assemble to me all the of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call and earth to against them. For I know that after my you will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn away from which I have commanded you; and evil will happen to you in the , because you will do that which is evil in sight, to provoke him to through the work of your hands." spoke in the ears of all of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.