Then Joshua read all the words of the law out loud. He read the blessings and the curses. He read them just as they are written in the Book of the Law.

随后，约书亚将律法上祝福、咒诅的话，照着律法书上一切所写的，都宣读了一遍。

随后，约书亚将律法上祝福和诅咒的话，照着律法书上一切所写的，宣读一遍。

随后，约书亚将律法上祝福和诅咒的话，照着律法书上一切所写的，宣读一遍。

随后，约书亚向民众宣读记在摩西律法书上的一切祝福和咒诅。

然后，约书亚宣读律法上一切祝福和咒诅的话，全都照着律法书上所写的一切。

隨後，約書亞將律法上祝福、咒詛的話，照着律法書上一切所寫的，都宣讀了一遍。

隨後，約書亞將律法上祝福和詛咒的話，照着律法書上一切所寫的，宣讀一遍。

隨後，約書亞將律法上祝福和詛咒的話，照着律法書上一切所寫的，宣讀一遍。

隨後，約書亞向民眾宣讀記在摩西律法書上的一切祝福和咒詛。

然後，約書亞宣讀律法上一切祝福和咒詛的話，全都照著律法書上所寫的一切。

然後約書亞將律法上祝福與咒詛的話、照律法書上所寫的全都宣讀一遍。

厥後、約書亞宣讀律書所載祝詛諸言、

約書亞誦律法諸言、無論祝福咒詛、俱循所載。

此後約書亞宣讀律法書論賜福降禍之諸言、或作宜讀作法諸言無論祝福詛咒皆律法書所載、

Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law— the blessings and the curses— just as it is written in the Book of the Law.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law.

Joshua then read to them all the blessings and curses Moses had written in the Book of Instruction.

Afterward, Joshua read aloud all the words of the law— the blessings as well as the curses— according to all that is written in the book of the law.

Then afterward he read all the words of the Law, the blessing and the curse, according to everything that is written in the Book of the Law.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

Afterward, Joshua read aloud all the words of the law— the blessings as well as the curses— according to all that is written in the book of the law.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

Then Joshua read aloud all the words of the law, including the blessings and the curses, just as they are written in the law scroll.

Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

Ezra the priest brought the Law out to the whole community. It was the first day of the seventh month. The group was made up of men, women, and children old enough to understand what Ezra was going to read.He read the Law to them from sunrise until noon. He did it as he faced the open area in front of the Water Gate. He read it to the men, the women, and the children old enough to understand. And all the people paid careful attention as Ezra was reading the Book of the Law.

Then Moses commanded them,“ You must read this law at the end of every seven years. Do it in the year when you forgive people what they owe. Read it during the Feast of Booths.That’s when all the Israelites come to appear in front of the Lord your God at the holy tent. It will be at the place he will choose. You must read this law to them.Gather the people together. Gather the men, women and children. Also bring together the outsiders living in your towns. Then they can listen and learn to have respect for the Lord your God. And they’ll be careful to obey all the words of this law.

Today I’m giving you a choice. You can have life and success. Or you can have death and harm.I’m commanding you today to love the Lord your God. I’m commanding you to live exactly as he wants you to live. You must obey his commands, rules and laws. Then you will live. There will be many of you. The Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to take as your own.Don’t let your hearts turn away from the Lord. Instead, obey him. Don’t let yourselves be drawn away to other gods. And don’t bow down to them and worship them.If you do, I announce to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You are about to go across the Jordan River and take over the land. But you won’t live there very long.I’m calling for the heavens and the earth to be witnesses against you this very day. I’m offering you the choice of life or death. You can choose either blessings or curses. But I want you to choose life. Then you and your children will live.And you will love the Lord your God. You will obey him. You will remain true to him. The Lord is your very life. He will give you many years in the land. He promised to give that land to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

At that time the Book of Moses was read out loud. All the people heard it. It was written there that no Ammonite or Moabite could ever become a member of God’s community.

The Lord will never be willing to forgive those people. His great anger will blaze out against them. All the curses I’ve written down in this book will fall on them. And the Lord will erase any mention of them from the earth.He will find those people in all the tribes of Israel and give them nothing but trouble. That will agree with all the curses of the covenant. They are written down in this Book of the Law.

The Levites will speak to all the Israelites in a loud voice. The Levites will say,“ May anyone who makes a statue of a god and sets it up in secret be under the Lord’ s curse. That statue is made by a skilled worker. And the Lord hates it.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who brings shame on their father or mother be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who moves their neighbor’s boundary stone be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who leads blind people down the wrong road be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who treats unfairly outsiders, widows, and children whose fathers have died be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who sleeps with his stepmother be under the Lord’ s curse. That man brings shame on his father by doing that.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who has sex with animals be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who sleeps with his sister be under the Lord’ s curse. It doesn’t matter whether she is his full sister or his half sister.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who sleeps with his mother- in- law be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who kills their neighbor secretly be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who accepts money to kill someone who isn’t guilty of doing anything wrong be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”“ May anyone who doesn’t honor the words of this law by obeying them be under the Lord’ s curse.” Then all the people will say,“ Amen!”Make sure you obey the Lord your God completely. Be careful to obey all his commands. I’m giving them to you today. If you do these things, the Lord will honor you more than all the other nations on earth.If you obey the Lord your God, here are the blessings that will come to you and remain with you.You will be blessed in the cities. You will be blessed out in the country.Your children will be blessed. Your crops will be blessed. The young animals among your livestock will be blessed. That includes your calves and lambs.Your baskets and bread pans will be blessed.You will be blessed no matter where you go.Enemies will rise up against you. But the Lord will help you win the battle over them. They will come at you from one direction. But they’ll run away from you in every direction.The Lord your God will bless your barns with plenty of grain and other food. He will bless everything you do. He’ll bless you in the land he’s giving you.The Lord your God will make you his holy people. He will set you apart for himself. He promised to do this. He promised to do it if you would keep his commands and live exactly as he wants you to live.All the nations on earth will see that you belong to the Lord. And they will be afraid of you.The Lord will give you more than you need. You will have many children. Your livestock will have many little ones. Your crops will do very well. All of that will happen in the land he promised to give you. He promised this to your people of long ago.The Lord will open up the heavens. That’s where he stores his riches. He will send rain on your land at just the right time. He’ll bless everything you do. You will lend money to many nations. But you won’t have to borrow from any of them.The Lord your God will make you leaders, not followers. Pay attention to his commands that I’m giving you today. Be careful to obey them. Then you will always be on top. You will never be on the bottom.Don’t turn away from any of the commands I’m giving you today. Don’t turn to the right or the left. Don’t follow other gods. Don’t worship them.But suppose you don’t obey the Lord your God. And you aren’t careful to obey all his commands and rules I’m giving you today. Then he will send curses on you. They’ll catch up with you. Here are those curses.You will be cursed in the cities. You will be cursed out in the country.Your baskets and bread pans will be cursed.Your children will be cursed. Your crops will be cursed. Your calves and lambs will be cursed.You will be cursed no matter where you go.The Lord will send curses on you. You won’t know what’s going on. In everything you do, he will be angry with you. You will be destroyed suddenly and completely. This will happen because you did an evil thing when you deserted the Lord.He will send all kinds of sicknesses on you. He’ll send them until he has destroyed you. He’ll remove you from the land you are entering to take as your own.The Lord will make you sick and very weak. He will strike you with fever and swelling. He’ll send burning heat. There won’t be any rain. The hot winds will completely dry up your crops. All those things will happen until you die.The sky above you will be like bronze. The ground beneath you will be like iron.The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder. It will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.The Lord will help your enemies win the battle over you. You will come at them from one direction. But you will run away from them in every direction. All the kingdoms on earth will be completely shocked when they see you.Birds and wild animals will eat up your dead bodies. There won’t be anyone left to scare them away.The Lord will send boils on you, just like the ones he sent on the Egyptians. You will have growths in your bodies and boils on your skin. You will itch all over. No one will be able to heal you.The Lord will make you lose your mind. He will make you blind. You won’t know what’s going on.Even at noon you will have to feel your way around like a blind person in the dark. You won’t have success in anything you do. Day after day you will be robbed and treated badly. No one will be able to save you.You and a woman will promise to marry each other. But another man will take her and rape her. You will build a house. But you won’t live in it. You will plant a vineyard. But you won’t eat a single grape from it.Your ox will be killed right in front of your eyes. But you won’t eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you by force. And you will never get it back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. No one will be able to save them.Your children will be given to another nation. Day after day you will watch for them to come back. But you will only wear out your eyes. You won’t be able to help your children.A nation you don’t know anything about will eat what you work to produce on your land. You will only be treated badly as long as you live.The things you see will make you lose your mind.The Lord will send painful boils on your knees and legs. No one will be able to heal them. They will cover you from head to toe.The Lord will drive you out of the land. And he will drive out the king you place over yourselves. All of you will go to another nation. You and your people of long ago didn’t know anything about them. There you will worship other gods. They will be made out of wood and stone.You will look very bad to all the nations where the Lord sends you. They will be completely shocked when they see you. They will mock you and make fun of you.You will plant many seeds in your field. But you will gather very little food. Locusts will eat it up.You will plant vineyards and take care of them. But you won’t drink the wine. You won’t gather the grapes. Worms will eat them up.You will have olive trees through your whole country. But you won’t use the oil. The olives will drop off the trees.You will have children. But you won’t be able to keep them. They’ll be taken away as prisoners.Large numbers of locusts will eat up the leaves on all your trees. They will also eat up the crops on your land.Outsiders who live among you will become your leaders. They will rise higher and higher. But you will sink lower and lower.They will lend money to you. But you won’t be able to lend money to them. They will be the leaders. But you will be the followers.The Lord your God will send all these curses on you. They will follow you everywhere. They’ll catch up with you. You will be under the Lord’ s curse until you are destroyed. That’s because you didn’t obey him. You didn’t keep the commands and rules he gave you.These curses will remain as signs and awful judgments against you and your children after you forever.You didn’t serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness when times were good.So he will send enemies against you. You will have to serve them. You will be hungry and thirsty. You will be naked and poor. The Lord will put the iron chains of slavery around your necks until he has destroyed you.The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away. It will come from the ends of the earth. It will dive down on you like an eagle. You won’t understand that nation’s language.Its people will look mean. They won’t have any respect for old people. They won’t show any kindness to young people.They will eat up the young animals among your livestock. They’ll eat up the crops on your land. They’ll destroy you. They won’t leave you any grain, olive oil or fresh wine. They won’t leave you any calves or lambs. They’ll destroy you.They’ll surround all the cities throughout your whole land. They’ll attack those cities until the high, strong walls you trust in fall down. That’s what will happen to the cities in the land the Lord your God is giving you.Your enemies will surround you and attack you. They will make you suffer greatly. So you will eat your own children. You will eat the dead bodies of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.There may be a gentle and caring man among you. But he will treat his own brother badly. He’ll be just as mean to the wife he loves and to any of his children who are still alive.He won’t give to a single one of them any part of the dead bodies of his children that he’s eating. It will be all he has left to eat. That’s how much your enemies will make you suffer when they surround all your cities and attack them.There may be a gentle and caring woman among you. She wouldn’t even touch the ground with her feet without first putting her sandals on. But she will not share anything with the husband she loves. She won’t share with her own children either.She will eat what comes out of her body after she has a baby. Then she’ll even eat her baby. She won’t share it with anyone in her family. In her great hunger she’ll plan to eat it in secret. There won’t be anything else for her to eat because the city she lives in will be surrounded. That’s an example of how much your enemies will make you suffer when they are attacking your cities.Be careful to follow all the words of this law. They are written in this scroll. Have respect for the glorious and wonderful name of the Lord your God. If you don’t,he will send terrible plagues on you and your children after you. He’ll send horrible and lasting troubles. He’ll make you very sick for a long time.He’ll bring on you all the sicknesses you were afraid of getting when you were in Egypt. You won’t be able to get rid of them.The Lord will also bring on you all other kinds of sickness and trouble. I haven’t even written those down in this Book of the Law. You will be destroyed.At one time you were as many as the stars in the sky. But there will only be a few of you left. That’s because you didn’t obey the Lord your God.It pleased the Lord to give you success and to cause there to be many of you. But it will please him just as much to wipe you out and destroy you. You will be removed from the land you are entering to take as your own.Then the Lord will scatter you among all the nations. He’ll spread you around from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship statues of gods made out of wood and stone. You and your people of long ago hadn’t known anything about those gods.Among those nations you won’t find any peace. There won’t be any place where you can make your home and rest your feet. The Lord will give you minds filled with worry. He’ll give you eyes worn out from looking for help. You won’t have any hope in your hearts.Your lives will always be in danger. You will be filled with fear night and day. You will never be sure you are safe.In the morning you will say,“ We wish it were evening!” In the evening you will say,“ We wish it were morning!” Your hearts will be filled with fear. The things you see will terrify you.The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships. He’ll send you on a journey I said you should never have to make again. You will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves in Egypt. But no one will buy you.

“‘ Do not make statues of gods for yourselves. Do not set up a likeness of a god or a sacred stone for yourselves. Do not place a carved stone in your land and bow down in front of it. I am the Lord your God.“‘ You must always keep my Sabbath days. Have respect for my sacred tent. I am the Lord.“‘ Follow my rules. Be careful to obey my commands.Then I will send you rain at the right time. The ground will produce its crops. The trees will bear their fruit.You will continue to harvest your grain until you gather your grapes. You will continue to gather your grapes until you plant your crops. You will have all you want to eat. And you will live in safety in your land.“‘ I will give you peace in the land. You will be able to sleep because no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild animals from the land. There will not be any war in your country.You will hunt down your enemies. You will kill them with your swords.Five of you will chase 100. And 100 of you will chase 10,000. You will kill your enemies with your swords.“‘ I will bless you. I will give you many children so that there will be many of you. And I will be faithful to the covenant I made with you.You will still be eating last year’s crops when you will have to make room for new crops.I will live among you. I will not turn away from you.I will walk among you. I will be your God. And you will be my people.I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt. I did not want you to be slaves in Egypt anymore. I threw off your heavy load. I helped you walk with your heads held high.“‘ On the other hand, suppose you do not listen to me. Suppose you do not carry out all my commands.Suppose you say no to my rules and turn away from my laws. And suppose you break my covenant by failing to carry out all my commands.Then here is what I will do to you. All at once I will bring terror on you. I will send sicknesses that will make you weak. I will send fever that will destroy your sight. It will slowly take your strength away. When you plant seeds, it will not do you any good. Instead, your enemies will eat what you have planted.I will turn against you. Then your enemies will win the battle over you. Those who hate you will rule over you. You will run away even when no one is chasing you.“‘ After all that, suppose you still will not listen to me. Then I will punish you for your sins seven times.I will break down your stubborn pride. I will make the sky above you like iron, and it will not rain. I will make the ground under you like bronze, and you will not be able to farm it.You will work with all your strength, but it will not do you any good. That is because your soil will not produce any crops. The trees of your land will not bear any fruit.“‘ Suppose you continue to be my enemy. And suppose you still refuse to listen to me. Then I will multiply your troubles many times because of your sins.I will send wild animals against you. They will kill your children. They will destroy your cattle. There will be so few of you left that your roads will be deserted.“‘ After all those things, suppose you still do not accept my warnings. And suppose you continue to be my enemy.Then I myself will be your enemy. I will make you suffer again and again for your sins.I will send war against you to punish you for breaking my covenant. When you go back into your cities, I will send a plague among you. You will be handed over to your enemies.I will cut off your supply of bread. Ten women will need only one oven to bake your bread. They will weigh out the bread piece by piece. Even when you eat all of it, it will not be enough to satisfy you.“‘ After all that, suppose you still do not listen to me. And suppose you continue to be my enemy.Then I will be angry with you. I will be your enemy. I myself will again punish you for your sins over and over.You will eat the dead bodies of your sons. You will also eat the dead bodies of your daughters.I will destroy the high places where you worship other gods. I will pull down your incense altars. I will pile up your dead bodies on the lifeless statues of your gods. And I will turn away from you.I will completely destroy your cities. I will destroy your places of worship. The pleasant smell of your offerings will not give me any delight.I myself will destroy your land so completely that your enemies who live there will be shocked.I will scatter you among the nations. I will pull out my sword and hunt you down. Your land and your cities will be completely destroyed.Then the deserted land will enjoy its sabbath years. It will rest. It will not be farmed. It will enjoy its sabbaths. But you will become prisoners in the country of your enemies.The land will rest the whole time it is deserted. It was not able to rest during the sabbaths you lived in it.“‘ Some of you will be left in the lands of your enemies. I will fill your hearts with fear. The sound of a leaf blown by the wind will scare you away. You will run as if you were escaping from swords. You will fall down, even though no one is chasing you.You will trip over one another as if you were running away from the battle. You will run away, even though no one is chasing you. You will not be able to stand and fight against your enemies.While you are still scattered among the nations, you will die. The lands of your enemies will destroy you.You who are left in those lands will become weaker and weaker. You will die because of your sins and the sins of your people who lived before you.“‘ But suppose you admit that both you and your people who lived before you have sinned. You admit the evil and dishonest things you have done against me. And you admit you have become my enemy.What you did made me become your enemy. I let your enemies take you into their land. But suppose you stop being stubborn. You stop being proud. And you pay for your sin.Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will remember my covenant with Isaac. I will remember my covenant with Abraham. I will remember what I said to them about the land.You will leave the land. It will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies deserted because you are not there. You will pay for your sins because you said no to my laws. You turned away from my rules.But even after all that, I will not say no to you or turn away from you. I will not destroy you completely in the land of your enemies. I will not break my covenant with you. I am the Lord your God.Because of you, I will remember the covenant I made with the people of Israel who lived before you. I brought them out of Egypt to be their God. The nations saw me do it. I am the Lord.’ ”These are the orders, the laws and the rules of the covenant the Lord made on Mount Sinai. He made it between himself and the Israelites through Moses.

Never stop reading this Book of the Law. Day and night you must think about what it says. Make sure you do everything written in it. Then things will go well with you. And you will have great success.

They stood where they were. They listened while the Levites read parts of the Book of the Law of the Lord their God. They listened for a fourth of the day. They spent another fourth of the day admitting their sins. They also worshiped the Lord their God.