lest, after you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built fair houses and dwelt in them, and have had herds and flocks of sheep, and abundance of silver and gold and of all things, your heart be lifted up, and you remember not the Lord your God. And after a few verses: At the last, he says, he had mercy on you, lest you should say in your heart: my might and the strength of my hand have gotten me all these things, but that you should remember the Lord your God, that it is he who has given you power. And after some space: That you yourselves may eat and be filled. Take heed lest perhaps your heart be deceived, and you depart from the Lord your God and serve strange gods and worship them, and the Lord being angry shut up heaven. And after some space:
Overthrow all the places where the nations, whom you are to possess, worshiped their gods, upon the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. Destroy their altars and break their statues, burn their groves with fire and grind their idols to powder: blot out their names from their places. And after certain things interposed, when he was speaking of foreigners: Beware lest you imitate them, after they have been overthrown at your coming in, and inquire after their ceremonies, saying: as these nations worshiped their gods, so will I also worship. You shall not do the like to the Lord your God. For all the abominations which the Lord abhors they did to their gods, offering their sons and daughters and burning them with fire. What I command you, this alone you shall do to the Lord:
neither add anything, nor diminish. If there rise up in the midst of you a prophet, or one who says he has seen a dream, and foretells a sign or a wonder, and what he has spoken comes to pass, and he says to you: let us go and follow strange gods, whom you know not, and let us serve them, you shall not hear the words of that prophet or dreamer: for the Lord your God is tempting you, that it may be made manifest whether you love him or not, with your whole heart and with your whole soul. Follow the Lord your God and fear him: keep his commandments and hear his voice: him shall you serve and to him shall you cleave. But that prophet or inventor of dreams shall be put to death:
because he has spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage: that he might make you err from the way which the Lord your God had commanded you: and you shall put away the evil from the midst of you. If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter, or the wife who is in your bosom, or the friend whom you love as your own soul, should wish to persuade you, saying secretly: let us go and follow strange gods, whom neither you nor your fathers know, of all the nations round about, whether near or far off, from the beginning even to the ends of the earth, you shall not consent to him, nor hear him, nor shall your eye spare him, to have pity and hide him: but you shall at once put him to death.
Let your hand be first upon him, and after you let all the people put forth their hand. He shall be killed, overwhelmed with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God. And a little after: You shall not cut yourselves, nor make baldness upon the dead: for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. And in another place: If one, he says, of your brothers, who dwells within the gates of your city in the land which the Lord your God is about to give you, comes to poverty, you shall not harden your heart, nor draw in your hand: but you shall open it to the poor and give him a loan of what you perceive him to need. Beware lest perhaps an impious thought creep upon you, and you say in your heart: the seventh year of remission draws near, and you turn away your eyes
from your poor brother, unwilling to lend him the loan he asks, lest he cry against you to the Lord and it become a sin to you: but you shall give to him, nor shall you act craftily in relieving his necessities, that the Lord your God may bless you at all times and in all things to which you put your hand. The poor shall not be lacking in the land of your habitation: therefore I command you to open your hand to your needy and poor brother, who dwell with you in the land. And some while after: You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God shall give you, throughout your several tribes, that they may judge the people with just judgment, nor turn aside to either part. You shall not respect persons nor take gifts:
for gifts blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the just. You shall justly pursue what is just, that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God shall give you. And after a few things: You shall not make nor set up for yourself a statue, which the Lord your God hates. Likewise after a few things: If there be found among you, within one of your gates which the Lord your God will give you, a man or a woman who does evil in the sight of the Lord your God and transgresses his covenant, so as to go and serve strange gods and worship them, the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, and this be told to you, and hearing it you inquire diligently and find it to be true, and that this abomination has been committed in Israel:
you shall bring out the man and the woman who have perpetrated this most wicked deed to the gates of your city, and they shall be stoned. At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall he perish who is to be put to death. Let no one be killed on the testimony of one speaking against him. The hand of the witnesses shall first kill him, and afterward the hand of the rest of the people shall be put forth, that you may put away the evil from the midst of you. Likewise after some space: But the man who is proud, refusing to obey the command of the priest who at that time ministers to the Lord your God, and the decree of the judge, that man shall die: and you shall put away the evil from Israel: and all the people hearing it shall fear, that none thereafter swell with pride. And after certain things interposed, when he was admonishing concerning foreigners:
Beware, he says, lest you wish to imitate the abominations of those nations. Let there not be found in you one who purifies his son or daughter by leading them through the fire, or one who consults soothsayers, and observes dreams and auguries; let there be no sorcerer, no enchanter, nor consult those that have familiar spirits, nor diviners, nor seek truth from the dead. For all these things the Lord abominates. And after 'abominates': One witness shall not stand against anyone, whatever that sin or crime may be: but at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand. If a lying witness stand up against a man, accusing him of transgression, both, whose cause it is, shall stand before the Lord in the presence of the priests and judges who shall be in those days:
and when the judges, searching most diligently, have found that the false witness spoke a lie against his brother, they shall render to him as he thought to render to his brother, and you shall put away the evil from the midst of you: that the rest, hearing it, may have fear and by no means dare to do such things. You shall not pity him, but shall exact life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. And elsewhere in the same book: If a man beget a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not hear the command of his father and mother, and being chastised has scorned to obey, they shall lay hold of him and lead him out to the elders of that city and to the gate of judgment, and they shall say to them:
This our son is rebellious and stubborn; he has scorned to hear our admonitions, he gives himself to riotous living, to luxury, and to feasting; the people of the city shall stone him, and he shall die, that you may put away the evil from the midst of you, and that all Israel hearing it may be greatly afraid. And after a few things: You shall not see your brother's ox or sheep going astray and pass it by, but you shall bring it back to your brother, even if your brother is not near of kin to you, nor do you know him: you shall lead it into your house, and it shall be with you until your brother seeks it and receives it. Likewise you shall do concerning the ass and the garment and every lost thing of your brother's, which has perished: if you find them, you shall not neglect them as things belonging to another.
If you see your brother's ass or ox fallen in the way, you shall not turn away, but shall lift it up with him. A woman shall not put on a man's garment, nor shall a man use a woman's garment: for whoever does these things is abominable before the Lord. Likewise after a few things: When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for the roof round about, lest blood be shed in your house and you be guilty if another slip and fall headlong. Likewise a little after: If a man take a wife and afterward hate her, and seek occasions to put her away, laying against her a most wicked name, and say:
I took this woman to wife, and when I went in to her I found her no virgin; then the father and mother of the girl shall take and bring with them the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city who are at the gate, and the father shall say: I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, and because he hates her, he lays against her a most wicked name, saying: I did not find your daughter a virgin: and behold, these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread out the garment before the elders of the city: and the elders of that city shall take the man and beat him, condemning him further in a hundred shekels of silver, which he shall give to the girl's father: because he defamed a most wicked name upon a virgin of Israel: and he shall have her as his wife, and he shall not be able to put her away all the days of his life.
But if what he alleges is true, and virginity was not found in the girl, they shall cast her out before the doors of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her, and she shall die: because she wrought folly in Israel, to commit fornication in her father's house: and you shall put away the evil from the midst of you. If a man lie with another's wife, both shall die, that is, the adulterer and the adulteress: and you shall put away the evil from Israel. If a man have betrothed a virgin girl, and someone find her in the city and lie with her, you shall bring both out to the gate of that city, and they shall be stoned: the girl, because she did not cry out, being in the city; the man, because he humbled his neighbor's wife: and you shall put away the evil from the midst of you.
But if a man find in the field a girl who is betrothed, and seizing her lie with her, he alone shall die: the girl shall suffer nothing, nor is she guilty of death: because as a robber rises up against his brother and slays his soul, so also has the girl suffered: she was alone in the field, she cried out, and there was no one to deliver her. If a man find a virgin girl who has no betrothed, and seizing her lie with her, and the matter come to judgment, he who lay with her shall give the girl's father a hundred shekels of silver and shall have her as his wife, because he humbled her: he shall not be able to put her away all the days of his life. A man shall not take his father's wife, nor uncover his covering. And a little after:
There shall be no harlot among the daughters of Israel, nor whoremonger among the sons of Israel. And a little after: You shall not lend to your brother at usury money, nor grain, nor any other thing, but to another. And after a few verses: When you vow a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not be slow to pay it: for the Lord your God will require it, and if you delay, it shall be reckoned to you as sin. If you are unwilling to make a promise, you shall be without sin: but what has once gone out of your lips you shall observe and do as you have promised the Lord your God, and have spoken with your own will and your own mouth. And a little after: You shall not take as a pledge the lower or upper millstone, because he has laid down his own life to you.
If a man be caught kidnapping one of his brothers of the sons of Israel, and having sold him, taking a price for him, he shall be put to death: and you shall put away the evil from the midst of you. And after a few verses: When you demand, he says, from your neighbor anything that he owes you, you shall not enter his house to take a pledge, but you shall stand outside, and he shall bring out to you what he has. But if he is poor, the pledge shall not stay overnight with you, but you shall restore it to him at once before the going down of the sun, that sleeping in his own garment he may bless you, and you may have righteousness before the Lord your God. You shall not withhold the wages of your needy and poor brother, or of the stranger who dwells with you in the land and is within your gates:
but the same day you shall give him the price of his labor before the going down of the sun: because he is poor and thereby sustains his life: lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be reckoned to you as sin. Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers, but every one shall die for his own sin. And after a few verses: When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten and left a sheaf, you shall not return to take it, but you shall let the stranger and the fatherless and the widow carry it off, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. If you gather the fruits of your olive trees, whatever remains on the trees you shall not return to gather, but shall leave for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
If you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean the clusters that remain, but they shall fall to the use of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Remember that you also were a slave in Egypt, and therefore I command you to do this thing. If there be a case between certain persons, and they appeal to the judges, whom they perceive to be just they shall award the palm of justice, whom impious they shall condemn of impiety. But if they see that the one who sinned deserves stripes, they shall throw him down and cause him to be beaten before them. According to the measure of the sin shall be the measure of the stripes: yet so that they exceed not the number of forty, lest your brother go away foully mangled before your eyes. And after a little:
If men have a quarrel between them and one begin to fight against the other, and the wife of the one, wishing to rescue her husband from the hand of the stronger, put forth her hand and seize his privy parts, you shall cut off her hand, nor shall you be moved to any pity for her. You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, a greater and a lesser: nor shall there be in your house a greater and a lesser measure. You shall have a just and true weight, and an equal and true measure shall you have. And after many things: Cursed is the man who makes a graven and molten thing, an abomination to the Lord, the work of craftsmen's hands, and sets it in a hidden place. And all the people shall answer and say: amen. Cursed is he who honors not his father and mother. And all the people shall say: amen.
Cursed is he who removes his neighbor's landmarks. And all the people shall say: amen. Cursed is he who makes the blind to wander in the way. And all the people shall say: amen. Cursed is he who perverts the judgment of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. And all the people shall say: amen. Cursed is everyone who lies with his father's wife and uncovers the covering of his bed. And all the people shall say: amen. Cursed is he who lies with any beast. And all the people shall say: amen. Cursed is he who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother. And all the people shall say: amen. Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say: amen. Cursed is he who secretly strikes his neighbor. And all the people shall say: amen.
Cursed is he who takes gifts to strike the soul of innocent blood. And all the people shall say: amen. Thus far we have set down what seemed fit to be set down from the books of Moses. But in those which follow, and are called Joshua son of Nun, Judges, Kingdoms, Chronicles, there is read rather a history of deeds done than precepts of living. Yet these very few things from the book of Joshua son of Nun I did not think should be passed over in this work. V. CONCERNING JOSHUA SON OF NUN. Return and go to your tents and to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord delivered to you beyond the Jordan:
provided only that you carefully keep and fulfill in deed the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, that you love the Lord your God and walk in all his ways and observe his commandments and cleave to him and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. And in another place: Lest, after you have entered in to the nations who shall be among you, you swear in the name of their gods and serve them and worship them: but cleave to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. But from the book of Psalms many things are to be set down, although the same are often repeated:
but I shall keep measure, as much as I can, lest this work, which is chiefly to be held in memory, run out to excessive length. VI. CONCERNING THE PSALMS. In the first psalm: Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of scorners: but his will is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he shall meditate day and night. In psalm 2: Now therefore, O kings, understand: be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice in him with trembling. Worship purely, lest perhaps he be angry, and you perish from the way. When his fury has blazed up after a little, blessed are all who hope in him. In psalm 4: Sons of men, how long, O my honorable ones, do you with dishonor love vanity, seeking a lie?
And a little after: Be angry, and sin not: speak in your hearts upon your beds and be still. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and trust in the Lord. In psalm 5: For you are not a God who wills iniquity. Nor shall the malignant dwell beside you: the wicked shall not stand in the sight of your eyes. You hate all who work iniquity, you shall destroy those who speak a lie. The man of blood and the deceitful the Lord shall abhor. In psalm 14: O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tabernacle? and who shall dwell in your holy mountain?
He who walks without blemish and works righteousness and speaks truth in his heart, who is not loose with his tongue, nor has done evil to his friend, nor taken up reproach against his neighbor. In his eyes the reprobate is despised, but he glorifies those who fear the Lord. He swears to afflict himself, and changes not. He has not given his money to usury, nor taken gifts against the innocent. He who does these things shall not be moved forever. In psalm 23: Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that is innocent of hands and clean of heart, who has not lifted up his soul in vain and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from God his Savior. In psalm 26:
The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? And after four verses: If camps should stand against me, my heart shall not fear. If war should rise up against me, in this will I trust. One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life: that I may behold the beauty of the Lord and attend upon his temple. And in another place: My heart has said to you: I have sought his face: your face, O Lord, will I seek. And afterward: Wait for the Lord, take courage, and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord. In psalm 27: Deliver me not with the impious and with those who work iniquity: who speak peace with their friends, and there is evil in their hearts. In psalm 30:
Be strengthened, and let your heart be made firm, all you who wait for the Lord. In psalm 31: Do not be like the horse and the mule, in which there is no understanding. With bit and bridle bind fast the jaws of those who do not draw near to you. Many are the sorrows of the impious, but mercy shall encompass him that trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright of heart. In psalm 32: Praise the Lord, you righteous: praise becomes the upright. And in another place: Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom the Lord has chosen for his inheritance. In psalm 33: I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall be ever in my mouth. In the Lord shall my soul be praised: let the meek hear and be glad.
Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. And after a few verses: Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who hopes in him. Fear the Lord, you his saints: for there is no want to those who fear him. The lions have suffered need and hungered, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. Come, children, hear me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he who wills life, loving to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil and do good: seek peace and pursue it. And after seven verses: The Lord is near to those who are contrite of heart, and those broken in spirit he will save. In psalm 36:
Do not contend with the malignant, nor be envious of those who do iniquity. For like grass they shall swiftly be worn away, and like the green herb they shall wither. Hope in the Lord and do good, sojourn in the land and be fed by faith. And delight in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart. Roll your way upon the Lord and trust in him, and he will act. And he will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. Be silent to the Lord and wait for him: do not contend against him who prospers in his way, against the man who does what he plots. Cease from anger and forsake fury: do not contend, so as to do evil. For those who do evil shall perish, but those who wait for the Lord shall themselves inherit the earth.
For yet a little while, and the impious shall not be: and you shall consider his place, and he shall not subsist. But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight in the abundance of peace. And a little after: Better is the little that the just man has than the many riches of the impious. For the arms of the impious shall be broken: but the Lord upholds the just. And some while after: Depart from evil and do good. And elsewhere: Wait for the Lord and keep his way: and he will exalt you, that you may possess the earth. Keep simplicity and behold the upright: for there shall be peace at the last for the man. In psalm 39: Blessed is the man who has made the Lord his confidence, and has not turned to vanities and lying pomps. In psalm 43:
In the Lord we will rejoice all the day, and in your name we will give thanks forever. And a little later: All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten you, nor have we dealt falsely in your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps declined from your path; for you have cast us down in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, and stretched out our hands to a strange god, shall not God search this out? For he himself knows the thoughts of the heart. For your sake we are put to death all the day; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. In Psalm 46: Sing to God, sing; sing to our King, sing. For God is King of all the earth; sing wisely. In Psalm 49:
Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High; and call upon me in the day of tribulation: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. But to the wicked God said: What have you to do with declaring my precepts, and taking my covenant in your mouth? You who hate discipline and have cast my words behind you. If you saw a thief, you consented to him; and you took your part with adulterers. Your mouth you have let loose to malice, and your tongue framed deceit. Sitting, you spoke against your brother, and against your mother's son you fashioned reproach. These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I would be like you: I will reprove you, and set them before your eyes. Understand this, you who forget God, lest at some time he seize you, and there be none to deliver.
He who offers confession glorifies me; and to him who walks in an orderly way I will show the salvation of God. In Psalm 50: From my iniquity and from my sin cleanse me; for I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. And elsewhere: A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise. In Psalm 51: Why do you glory in malice, you who are mighty? The mercy of God endures all the day. Your tongue devises treachery, like a sharpened razor working deceit. You have loved evil more than good, falsehood more than to speak justice. You have loved all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. But God will destroy you forever:
he will terrify you and pluck you out of your dwelling, and root you out of the land of the living. The just will see and fear, and will laugh at him: Behold the man who did not make God his strength, but hoped in the multitude of his riches, and grew strong in his own treachery. But I, like a flourishing olive tree in the house of God, have hoped in the mercy of God forever and ever. I will give you thanks forever, because you have done this; and I will wait upon your name, for it is good in the sight of your saints. In Psalm 61: Hope in him at all times, O peoples; pour out your hearts before him: God is our hope. Yet the sons of Adam are vanity, the sons of men a lie; on deceitful scales they act fraudulently together.
Do not trust in extortion, and be not led astray by robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. In Psalm 63: The just shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall hope in him. In Psalm 68: For your sake I have borne reproach; confusion has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, and a foreigner to my mother's sons. For the zeal of your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproached you have fallen upon me. And I chastened my soul with fasting, and it became a reproach to me. And I made sackcloth my garment, and became a byword to them. Those who sat in the gate spoke against me, and those who drank wine sang of me. And somewhat later: I will praise the name of God in song, and I will magnify him with thanksgiving.