Hebrew Bible: Deuteronomy

PREVIOUSLY: Israel arrived at the Jordan river, the border to the promised land.

1-30)Moses gives a really long speech which recaps the content of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, adds a few new laws, and goes on about the Israelites being God's chosen people and the need to follow all the laws.

Highlights include:

One of the Bible's most cringe-worthy lines so far:
'Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.'

What to do if a city stops worshipping God:
“If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’... you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again."

How to check if a prophet is legit:
"when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him."

What to do when you capture a city in warfare:
"And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you."

What to do with a rebellious son who disobeys his parents:
"All the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst."

A REALLY LONG description about what God will do if you don't follow the rules:

“The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly...
The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew...
The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies...
And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away.
The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind...
You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her.
You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it.
You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit.
Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat any of it.
Your donkey shall be seized before your face, but shall not be restored to you.
Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, but you shall be helpless.
A nation that you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, so that you are driven mad by the sights that your eyes see.
The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known.
You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.
The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away... who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young...
They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land.
And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you.
And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters...
The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left, so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, in the siege...
The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, in the siege...

Etc.

31) God tells Moses that he is going to die soon, and commands him to write a song. God tells Joshua that he shall be the new leader.

32) Moses sings the song to the Israelites.

33) Moses blesses Israel and each of its tribes.

34) Moses climbs a nearby mountain and looks upon the promised land. He dies, and God buries him somewhere. No-one knows where.

The people mourn for 30 days. Joshua takes command.

'And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.'

END OF DEUTERONOMY