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Joshua will become the new leader
31 Then Moses went out and he spoke to all the Israelites. 2 He said to them, ‘I am now 120 years old. I can no longer continue to lead you. The Lord has told me that I will not go across the Jordan River. 3 But the Lord your God himself will go across the river in front of you. He will destroy the nations who live in that land. Then you will live there instead of them. Joshua will lead you across the river, as the Lord has said. 4 The Lord will do to those nations the same things that he did to Sihon and to Og, the Amorite kings. He destroyed them and their land. 5 The Lord will give you power over them. Then you must do to them everything that I have told you to do. 6 Be strong and be brave! Do not be afraid of those people, because the Lord your God goes with you. He will always be there to help you. He will never leave you.’
7 Then Moses fetched Joshua. While all the Israelites listened, Moses said this to Joshua:
‘Be strong and very brave! You will go with these people into the land that the Lord promised to give to their ancestors. You will give them the land which will be their new home. 8 The Lord himself goes in front of you. He will always be with you, to help you. He will never leave you. So do not be afraid. Be brave!’
Do not forget God's Law
9 Moses wrote down all the rules of God's Law. He gave them to the Levite priests who carry the Lord's Covenant Box. He also gave them to the leaders of the Israelites. 10-11 Then Moses said to them, ‘You must read this Law to all the Israelites. Read it every seven years at the Feast of Huts, in the year when you forgive people's debts.[a] At that time all the Israelites will go to the place that the Lord your God will choose. When they meet there to worship the Lord, they must listen to this Law. 12 Bring all the men, women and children together. Also bring the foreign people who live in your towns. They must all hear God's Law as it is read to them. Then they can learn to respect and obey the Lord your God. They will be careful to obey all the teaching of his Law. 13 Their children will hear this Law for the first time. They will learn to respect and obey the Lord your God. You must do this for as long as you live in the land. You will soon go across the Jordan River to live there.’
Joshua becomes the new leader
14 The Lord said to Moses, ‘You will soon die. Fetch Joshua and come with him to the Tent of Meeting. When you meet with me there, I will give Joshua authority to be the leader of my people.’
So Moses and Joshua went to meet the Lord at his special tent.
15 The Lord appeared in a pillar of cloud. The cloud was above the door of the tent. 16 The Lord said to Moses, ‘You will soon die. After you die, the people will soon go away from me. They will start to worship foreign gods of the land where they are going. They will turn against me. They will not obey the covenant that I made with them. 17 When that happens, I will be very angry with them. I will leave them. I will refuse to help them until they are destroyed. Many bad things will happen to them so that they are in great trouble. Then they will say, “These bad things have happened to us because our God is no longer with us.”
18 But at that time I will certainly refuse to help them. That is because of all the wicked things that they will have done. They will start to worship other gods.
19 Now write down this song that I will give to you. Teach the Israelites to sing it. Its words will show them that they are guilty because they have not obeyed me. 20 I will take them into this land, where there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone. It is the land that I promised to give to their ancestors. When they live there, they will eat as much food as they want. They will be fat and healthy. But then they will start to worship other gods. They will turn against me. They will not obey the covenant that I made with them. 21 Many bad things will happen to them so that they are in great trouble. Then this song will show them that they are guilty. Their descendants will never forget it. Even now, I know what they are thinking. I know what they want to do, even before I take them into the land that I have promised to them.’
22 So Moses wrote down this song on that same day. He taught it to the Israelites.
23 Then the Lord made Joshua, the son of Nun, the new leader. He said to Joshua, ‘Be strong and very brave! You will lead the Israelites into the land that I have promised to give them. I will be with you to help you.’
24 Moses finished writing all the words of God's Law in a book. 25 Then he said to the Levites who carried the Lord's Covenant Box, 26 ‘Take this book of God's Law. Put it next to the Covenant Box of the Lord your God. It must remain there, so that the Israelites will know when they are guilty. 27 I know that they are a proud people who do not want to obey me. All the time that I have been living among them, they have turned against the Lord. After my death, they will turn against him even more! 28 Now bring to me all the leaders and officers of your tribes. I want to tell them about all these things. And I want the sky and the earth to hear what I will say to them. 29 I know that, after my death, you will do more and more wicked things. You will turn away from the good things that I have commanded you to do. In future days, you will do wicked things against the Lord. Because of that, you will have great trouble. You will make the Lord angry because of the things that you do.’
30 Then Moses spoke the words of this song, from the beginning to the end. All the Israelites met together and they listened to him.
Moses' song
32 Sky and earth, listen to my words! Hear what I am saying!
2 My teaching will be like the rain that falls.
My messages will help the people who hear them,
as rain helps new grass to grow.
3 I will praise the Lord's name.
Everyone must know that our God is very great!
4 He is the strong Rock where we can be safe.
Everything that he does is perfect.
He only does what is right and fair.
We can trust him to be faithful.
5 But you, his people, have not served him faithfully.
Because of your sins, you cannot continue to be his children.
You have turned against him.
You enjoy doing bad things.
6 You are fools who do not understand what is right.
You should not do these things against the Lord.
He is your Father, the one who created you.
He made you become a strong nation.
7 Remember what happened a long time ago.
Think about the lives of your ancestors.
Ask your father or the old men.
They will tell you what happened in the past.
8 The Most High God gave land to be the home of each nation.
When he made people into separate groups,
he decided where their borders should be.[b]
He did that to match the number of angels in heaven.[c]
9 But the Lord himself takes care of his own people.
Jacob's descendants are his special people.
10 The Lord found them in a desert place.
It was a place where strong winds blew and nobody lived.
He took care of them and he kept them safe.
He protected them, like someone protects their own eyes.
11 The Lord took care of his people,
like an eagle takes care of its babies.
As an eagle flies with its babies on its back,
the Lord helped his people to be safe.
12 The Lord alone was a guide for his people.
He needed no foreign god to help him.
13 The Lord helped them to travel over the high places in the land.
He fed them with food from the fields.
He made them strong with honey from the rocks.
He gave them olive oil from trees in ground with many stones.
14 Their cows and their goats gave them plenty of milk and butter.
Their lambs, sheep and goats became fat,
so they ate the best meat.
They ate the best bread from their wheat.
They drank the best wine from their grapes.
15 The Israelites became rich and fat.[d]
They turned against God.
They were full of good food, but they turned away from God.
He was the one who made them.
He was the strong Rock who kept them safe.
But they no longer respected him.
16 They worshipped foreign gods.
So the Lord became angry and jealous.
They made idols which he hated.
17 They offered sacrifices to demons, instead of to God.
They worshipped new gods which they had not known before.
Your ancestors had never respected those gods.
18 You forgot about your strong Rock,
the God who gave you life.
19 When the Lord saw this, he turned away from them.
His sons and daughters had made him angry.
20 He said, ‘I will not continue to help them.
I will see what happens to them when I leave them alone.
They are children who do not obey me.
They have not served me faithfully.
21 They have made me jealous as they serve false gods.
They have made me angry as they worship useless idols.
So I will make them jealous as I help a useless nation.
I will make them angry as I bless a foolish nation.
22 I will become so angry that I punish them very much.
I will destroy them like a hot fire.
It will be like a fire that reaches deep down into the place of dead people.
It will destroy the ground and everything that grows on it.
It will burn deep down to the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will cause them to have many kinds of trouble.
I will attack them like a soldier who shoots all his arrows.
24 They will become weak and hungry.
They will have bad diseases that give them much pain.
I will cause wild animals to attack them.
Snakes will bite them and they will die.
25 If they go out of their homes, their enemies will kill them.
If they stay at home, they will die from fear.
Young men and young women will die.
Babies and old men will also die.
26 I wanted to remove my people completely,
so that nobody would ever remember them.
27 But then their enemies would boast.
They would not understand.
They would say, “We have destroyed these people with our own strength!
The Lord has not done this!” ’
8 I tell you this. You should say clearly to other people, “I believe in Jesus.” If you do this, I, the Son of Man, will say to the angels of God, “This is someone who is my disciple.” 9 But if you say to other people, “I do not believe in Jesus,” I will say to the angels of God, “I do not know this person. He is not one of my disciples.”
10 Somebody may speak against me, the Son of Man, and God will forgive him. But if somebody says bad things against the Holy Spirit, God will not forgive that person.[a]
11 People will take you into their meeting places. They will make you stand in front of rulers and other people that have authority. They will want to show that you have done bad things. But do not be afraid of them. Do not worry about what you should say. 12 At that time, the Holy Spirit will teach you. He will tell you what words you should say.’
A story about a rich fool
13 Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, I have a problem with my brother. Our father has died. Tell my brother to give me my part of the things that our father left us.’[b]
14 Jesus replied, ‘It is not my job to say which of you is right or wrong. And it is not my job to say how much each of you should have.’ 15 Then he said to all the people, ‘Be very careful! Do not want more things than you really need. A person's life is worth more than the things that he has, even if he is very rich.’
16 Jesus then told them a story: ‘A man had some very good ground, where he planted seeds. The plants grew very well. When they became ripe, he had much more than he planted. 17 He thought about how much he would soon have. “I have nowhere to store all the food from my plants,” he said to himself. 18 But then he decided what to do. He thought, “I will pull down the building where I now store my food. Then I will build a bigger place to store it all, as well as everything else that is mine. 19 Then I will say to myself, ‘You have plenty of things stored safely. These will be enough for you for many years. Now you can live an easy life. Eat and drink as much as you want. Enjoy yourself.’ ”
20 But then God said to the man, “You are a fool! Tonight you will die. You will have to leave everything behind that you have stored. Somebody else will have them, but you will not!” ’
21 Then Jesus said, ‘Some people think only about having many things for themselves. This story shows how those people live. But God says about them, “They have nothing of value at all.” ’
Do not have troubles in your mind
22 Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you this: You should not worry about how to stay alive. Do not worry about the food that you need to stay alive. Do not worry about the clothes that you need to wear. 23 Your life is more important than the food that you eat. Your body is more important than your clothes.
24 Think about the birds. They do not plant seeds in the ground. They do not cut down plants to eat. They have no buildings to store food. But God gives them food to eat. You are much more valuable than the birds. 25 Even if you always worry about your life, you cannot make it as much as one hour longer! 26 No, you cannot even do a small thing like that. So, if you are always worrying about the things that you need, will that really help you?
27 Think about how the wild flowers grow. They do not do work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you this about them: Even one wild flower is more beautiful than King Solomon was. And King Solomon wore the most beautiful clothes. 28 It is God that gives beautiful clothes even to the grass. One day the grass is growing in the field, but the next day people will cut it and burn it.[c] God will certainly take care of you, much more than he takes care of the grass. You should trust him more than you do!
29 Do not always be thinking about the food and drink that you need. Do not worry about things like that. 30 People who do not know God are always trying to get these things. But as for you, your Father God knows that you need them. 31 Instead, always think about the things that are important in the kingdom of God. Then God will also give you the things that you need each day.
32 You are only a small group of people, but do not be afraid. Your Father God has given his kingdom to you. He is happy to do that. 33 So sell what you have and give the money to poor people. Then you will have valuable things in heaven. That is like keeping your money in a bag that will never have any holes in it. There, the value of your things will never become less. There, nobody can take them from you. Insects cannot destroy them. 34 If you do that, you will be thinking a lot about heaven. That is where you will have stored your valuable things.’
32 Even when this happened,
the people continued to do bad things.
When God had done these miracles,
they still did not trust him to help them.
33 So he made their lives end quickly, like a breath.
They became very afraid.
34 When God killed some of them,
the other people turned to God.
They were sorry and they prayed to him.
35 They remembered that God
was their strong Rock.
They remembered that the Most High God
was their Redeemer.
36 But they deceived him with their words.
What they said to him was lies.
37 They did not really trust him.
They did not obey the covenant
that he had made with them.
38 But God was kind to them,
and he forgave them for their sins.
He did not destroy them.
Many times he was patient,
and he did not become angry with them.
39 He remembered that they were weak and human,
like a wind that blows away and does not return.
40 When the Israelite people were in the wilderness,
they often turned against God.
That caused God to be very sad.
41 Many times they tested God, the Holy One of Israel,
so that he was very upset.
42 They forgot about his great power,
and how he rescued them from their enemies.
43 He did powerful miracles in Egypt,
in the region of Zoan.
44 He caused the Egyptians' rivers to become blood,
so that they could not drink water from them.[a]
45 He sent large numbers of flies to bite them.[b]
He sent frogs that destroyed their land.[c]
46 He caused locusts to eat their crops,
and everything that grew in their fields.[d]
47 He destroyed their vines with hail.
He destroyed their fig trees with frost.
48 He sent hail to kill their cows.
He sent lightning to kill their other animals.[e]
49 He was so angry with them,
that he sent terrible things to punish them.
Great trouble came to them,
like an army of his angels that bring death.
50 Nothing could stop his anger.
He did not save them from death.
He let bad disease kill them.
51 He killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt.
The strongest men of Ham's descendants died.[f]
52 But God led his own people safely out of Egypt.
But took them through the wilderness,
like a shepherd leads his sheep.[g]
53 They were safe with him as their guide,
and they were not afraid.
But their enemies drowned in the sea.[h]
54 He brought his people to the edge of his holy land.
It was land with the mountain
that he had taken with his power.[i]
55 He chased away the nations that were living there.
He gave to each tribe their own piece of land,
so that Israel's tribes could live there.[j]
21 Trouble keeps away from righteous people.
But wicked people have trouble all the time.
22 The Lord hates people who tell lies.
But he is pleased with people who do what they promise to do.
23 Careful people keep quiet about how much they know.
But foolish people show everyone how silly they are.
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