8. But the Lord is the one who is marching before you! He is the one who will be with you! He won’t let you down. He won’t abandon you. So don’t be afraid or scared!"
9. Then Moses wrote this Instruction down and gave it to the priests—the Levites who carry the chest containing the Lord’s covenant—and to all of the Israelite elders.
10. Moses then commanded them:At the end of seven years, at the appointed time in the year of debt cancellation, during the Festival of Booths,
11. when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the location he selects, you must read this Instruction aloud, in the hearing of all the people.
12. Gather everyone—men, women, children, and the immigrants who live in your cities—in order that they hear it, learn it, and revere the Lord your God, carefully doing all the words of this Instruction,
13. and so that their children, who don’t yet know the Instruction, may hear it and learn to revere the Lord your God for as long as you live on the ground you are crossing the Jordan River to possess.
14. Then the Lord said to Moses: "It’s almost time for you to die. Summon Joshua. The two of you must present yourselves at the meeting tent so I can command him." So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the meeting tent.
15. The Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud; the cloud pillar stood at the tent’s entrance.
16. The Lord then said to Moses:"Soon you will rest with your ancestors, and the people will rise up and act unfaithfully, going after strange gods of the land they are entering. They will abandon me, breaking my covenant that I made with them.
17. At that point my anger will burn against them, and I’ll be the one who abandons them! I’ll hide my face from them. They will become nothing but food for their enemies, and all sorts of bad things and misfortunes will happen to them. Then they will say: ‘Haven’t these terrible things happened to us because our God is no longer with us?’