And Israel struck Sihon with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon: for the border of the children of Ammon was strong. And Israel took all these cities: and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the villages there.

And the children of Israel went forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side of the Jordan by Jericho. Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time. And Moab was very afraid of the people, because they were many.… Balak sent messengers therefore unto Balaam...saying, "Look, there is a people come out from Egypt…they cover the face of the earth, and they stay over against me: Come now therefore, I pray you, curse…this people; for they are too mighty for me…."

And God said unto Balaam, "You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people: for they are blessed." And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab. And God's anger was kindled because he went: And the angel of the LORD said unto Balaam, "Go with the men: but only the word that I shall speak unto you, that you shall speak." So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

And it came to pass on the next day, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal, so that he might see most of the people.

And Balaam took up his parable, and said, "...How shall I curse, whom God has not cursed? Or how shall I defy, whom the LORD has not defied?"

And Balak said unto him, "Come, I pray you, with me unto another place, and curse me them from there." And he brought him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah….

And Balaam took up his parable, and said, "...God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: has he said, and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Look, I have received commandment to bless: and he has blessed; and I cannot reverse it…."

And Balak said unto Balaam, "Come, I pray you, I will bring you unto another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse me them from there." And Balak brought Balaam unto the top of Peor, which looks toward Jeshimon.
And Balaam lifted up his eyes...and he took up his parable, and said, "...Blessed is he that blesses you, and cursed is he that curses you…."

And Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he...said unto Balaam, "Flee…to your place: I thought to promote you unto great honor; but, lo, the LORD has kept you back from honor."

And Balaam said unto Balak, "Spoke I not also to your messengers which you sent unto me, saying, 'If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the LORD, to do either good or bad of my own mind; but what the LORD says, that will I speak?'" And he took up his parable, and said, "...I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not now: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall strike the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remains of the city." And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way.

And Israel settled in Shittim, and the people began to commit prostitution with the daughters of Moab. And the Midianites called the Israelites unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.

And the LORD said unto Moses, "Take all the leaders of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel." And Moses said unto the judges of Israel,

"Kill…every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor." And those that died in the plague were twenty-four thousand."

And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying, "Afflict the Midianites, and strike them: For they harassed you with their wiles, with which they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor." And Israel warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses.

And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, when you…come over Jordan into the land of Canaan; Then you shall appoint…cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee there, which kills any person accidentally. Then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood according to these judgments.

"Whoever kills any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die. Furthermore you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. So you shall not pollute the land where you are: for blood it defiles the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, but by the blood of him that shed it.

And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he be to be put to death, and you hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall…bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that your land be not defiled, which the Lord your God gave you for an inheritance.

"If a man be found kidnapping any of his brothers of the children of Israel, and make merchandise of him, or sell him; then that kidnapper shall die; and you shall put evil away from among you. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD your God.

"Remember what Amalek did unto you by the way, when you were come forth out of Egypt; how he met you by the way, and struck the rear of you, even all that were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he feared not God. Therefore it shall be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies round about, in the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget it.

"When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses, and chariots, and a people more than you, be not afraid of them: for the LORD your God is with you, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

"When you come near unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make you answer of peace, and open unto you, then…all the people that is found there shall be forced laborers unto you, and they shall serve you.

"This shall you do unto all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD your God does give you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes: That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods….

"Judges and officers shall you make…in all your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, throughout your tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment. And … if there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. But the prophet, who shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.

"And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’ When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet had spoken it presumptuously: you shall not be afraid of him.

"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

"If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, of which he spoke unto you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and let us serve them’; You shall not listen unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams…. That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he has spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage….

"When you are come unto the land which the LORD your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall live there, and shall say, ‘I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me’; You shall…set him as king over you, whom the LORD your God shall choose: one from among your brethren shall you set as king over you: you may not set a stranger over you, which is not your brother. But the king shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: because as the LORD has said unto you, you shall therefore return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself that his heart turns not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

"And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel."

And Moses…said unto them, "... the LORD said unto me...I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whoever will not listen unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him."

Now the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan…saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them; When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall seize…the land and live in it…and you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; there everyone’s inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers…. And the inheritance of the children of Israel shall not change hands from tribe to tribe, for every one of the children of Israel shall keep the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.

"If brothers live together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry…a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the first-born which she bear shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.

"And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel shall be the wife of one of the family of her father’s tribe, so that the children of Israel each may possess…the inheritance of his fathers."

REFERENCES

Numbers 21:24-25; Numbers 22:1,4b, 3a, 5a, 5c-6a, 12, 21, 22a, 35, 41; Numbers 23:7a-8, 13a/c, 14a, 18a, 19-20, 27-28; Numbers 24:2a, 3a, 9b, 10a/c, 11b, 12-13,15a, 17, 19, 25; Numbers 25:1-5, 9, 16-18a; Numbers 31:7a. Numbers 35:1, 10-11, 24, 30-31, 33; Deuteronomy 21: 22-23; Deuteronomy 24:7; Deuteronomy 25:16-19; Deuteronomy 20:1, 10-11, 15-16,18; Deuteronomy 16:18; Numbers 12:6; Deuteronomy 17:14-20; Deuteronomy 5:1a; Deuteronomy 18:17a, 18-22; Isaiah 8:20; Deuteronomy 13:1-3a, 5a; Numbers 33:50-51, 53a 54; Deuteronomy 25:5-6; Numbers 36:7-8.

CHAPTER 14