Deuteronomy 9-13: Circumcise your heart. No, really.

Guess what, Moses is still talking.

He talks some more about how the enemy is strong, but never fear, you will destroy them with God's help. (Also God's magic hornet, but it doesn't mention that. Boo.) But! God is not helping you because you are righteous! It is because they are wicked, more wicked than you.

So... what, this is like that one joke; how fast do you have to be to outrun a bear and/or zombie? Faster than the other guy! How do you survive God's wrath? Be slightly less wicked than somebody else! Got it.

He's also helping because God never reneges on a promise! (Though he can apparently take 500 years to make good on it, and kill bunches of your people in the meantime) But of course, I still want to know why he bothered to make a promise to Abraham in the first place.

To illustrate just how unrighteous the Israelites are, Moses rehashes the story of how they made a gold calf to worship, while Moses was off getting the tablets of covenant law. Of course, all those people are dead now so I don't know why this is supposed to make them feel bad about themselves.

Funny thing about that story, Moses says while he was off getting the 1st set of tablets (the ones he broke), he didn't eat or drink for 40 days. Then he went to get the 2nd set of tablets, and also didn't eat or drink for 40 days, but that time it was because of their sin. So what, the first time he didn't eat or drink just for fun? At that point they hadn't sinned yet, after all.

My, Moses really likes to guilt them. I don't want to be offensive, but I'm pretty sure Moses is the world's first stereotypical Jewish grandfather. Oh how I've suffered for you!! But don't worry about it, I'll be fine. Also I'll be dead soon. But don't worry about it, I know how you have things to do.

He also mentioned some of the other times God got angry enough to kill them, but not in as much detail.

Then Moses says, God doesn't ask for so much really! Just your complete, unthinking, unwavering, zombie-like obedience! Love him, serve him, fear him, and above all obey him. We've heard this before, sigh.

God owns everything in heaven and earth, and yet he chose you losers as his favorite. The least you could do is give him what he wants...obedience. Therefore, "circumcise your hearts, and do not be stiff-necked any longer." What a disgusting image. What the fuck does that even mean??

So, God chose you out of all people to be his favorite. And in return, all you have to do is have absolutely no choice in how you live your own life, or even how you think your own thoughts. Stray out of the tight little mold God has made for you to live in, and he will fucking kill you. How magnanimous God is! What a great deal! Ugh.

LOL: "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes." God is God of gods. What an excellent definition of God.

Also, since when does God accept no bribes?? Are they supposed to stop doing animal sacrifice now? No. God demanded the first born of all people and animals (for what, who knows). Then he decided to take all the Levites instead. Is that over now? Do the Levites get to live their own lives instead of being bound in service to the priesthood? No. God not only accepts bribes, he demands them. And yes, those things are bribes; they do them to gain favor with God (ie, not be killed by him). So what the fuck is that all about?

Ugh, Moses is still going on about "love and obey God." STILL.

Apparently this land is so fantastic because God cares for it... this whole time he's cared for it, even though the Israelites aren't there yet and it's been inhabited by the 'even more unrighteous than the Israelites and therefore they deserve to die' people.

Also, they won't have to irrigate it because it "drinks rain from heaven." So...it rains here. Awesome. But only if they love God will it rain. If they don't love God, he "will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you." Ouch.

So why does it rain there now, with all the wicked people in it? If this is how it works, shouldn't God have been saying, "no rain for you, wicked people!" And they all would have died or moved away, and the conquest would have been so much easier. Or is this just another example of God making the Israelites' lives harder for no apparent reason. This book makes no sense.

Once again, Moses tells them to destroy all their places of worship and holy things. God has been going on about this about a million times since Exodus. I think they get the picture.

He also says that once they're all settled in the promised land, God will come and "put his Name" on some place, and that is where they all have to go to do their sacrifices and whatnot. Don't do sacrifices just anywhere! Do them at that one specific place.

Now, I don't know how big the promised land is, but I imagine that some people will have to travel for weeks to get to this place. How can God possibly avoid playing favorites when he picks this place? Or maybe that doesn't matter to him.

While he's talking about sacrifice, he reminds everyone that they aren't allowed to eat (drink?) blood, but this time he includes the reason: the blood is where the "life" is. I'm pretty sure all life isn't in the circulatory system. Maybe that's where the soul is.

Lol. If some prophet shows up and says "let's worship other gods!" - that is actually God testing you. He wants to see if you really love him. Why does he have to test them like that?? Why does he make them destroy all the people and holy objects just so they wouldn't be tempted to worship other gods, only to throw temptation at them himself? What's the point??

Oh yeah, and that prophet... he must be put to death. Why? If God is making this happen, why does that guy have to die now?? What is his crime? Being a pawn in God's sick twisted mind games? What the fuck!?!?!

Yes, put to death anyone who suggests worship of another god, be it your brother, son, daughter or wife. Stone them to death! And you, who love them, must cast the first stone. Even though God is apparently mind-controlling them just to fuck with you. Prove your loyalty to God by killing your loved ones. This makes me ill.

Furthermore, if some town has gone astray and started worshiping other gods, you must kill everybody in the town and then burn the town to the ground, as a burnt offering to God. Only if you do this burnt offering will God "show you mercy." Um, mercy for what? You weren't worshiping other Gods; those other people were.

Anyway, then the town must remain a burnt ruin forever.

This is awfully convenient. Kill anyone at the first hint of turning away from God! Then no one will ever have to be confronted with a different opinion ever again. Not for long anyway. How lovely.

Deuteronomy 1-6: Recap by Moses

Right, Deuteronomy. The Israelites are still by the Jordan River, which is apparently the boundary of the promised land, and they are about to cross over into it, and I guess kill everyone they find over there. But first, Moses (still not dead) spends about 3 chapters going over the story of how the Israelites got from Egypt to here. I can sort of understand the repetition in this case, because it's a new book.

It's pretty much the same, except a couple of interesting tidbits:

• In chapter 1, Moses tells the people about how God told him he wouldn't make it to the promised land, because he somehow fucked up the 'making water come out of a rock' thing. But here, Moses tells the Israelites that he blames them for his death. That's nice.
• In chapter 2, we find out more about why the Israelites killed some people and not others. Apparently they passed some people by because God told them to, because he had "given this land as a possession to the descendants of" Esau, or Lot, or whoever. In other words, God seems to have had other "covenants" with other tribes of people to give them land. Except in their cases, it didn't take about 500 years of slavery, hardship, wandering around in the wilderness, God himself killing hundreds of thousands of the very people he's supposed to like with plagues and fires, etc. Somebody explain to me in what way the Israelites are God's favorite people again? He treats them worse than everybody else.

Anyway, then in chapter 4 Moses starts talking about all the rules they're all supposed to follow. He basically says, you already know all the rules, and be damned sure to obey them, because...just do it, dammit! He also says, "remember that time when God gave us the 10 commandments..." even though I think he is officially the only person left who was actually alive then. Lol, crazy old man.

Then he reminds them about the "no idols!" rule, which I am absolutely convinced is the only thing God cares about, other than "no fucking yeast" and the "pleasing" aroma of burning animals. In what may be the biggest understatement of the bronze age, Moses also calls God "jealous" a couple of times in here.

Also at this point, Moses says (for the third time) that he is going to die here because "The LORD was angry with me because of you." Why is he blaming them? From my own understanding of what the bible said, God got upset for no apparent reason about the one time Moses made water come out of a rock. In that case, Moses can just blame God for being a fickle bitch.

On the other hand, it seems that the general interpretation of that story is that Moses didn't sufficiently glorify God for the water...he tried to take all the credit for it, in other words. In that case, it's mostly his own damn fault. And again, God is still partly to blame, for being a fickle bitch. Either way, he should really stop trying to guilt everyone about it.

Moses also threatens them that if they don't follow all God's rules, they will "quickly perish" and be destroyed, and scattered, and so on. Fantastic.

Then Moses starts talking about how fantastic God is. He created the universe! He brought us out of Egypt! You people had just better acknowledge his existence and obey his every fucking whim.

Then Moses names the 6 cities of refuge.

Man, this is all over the place. If the storyteller was trying to capture the fact that this is basically the incoherent ramblings of a dying old man, they did a great job!

For his next act, Moses goes over the 10 commandments... the 1st version, not the 2nd one (the one about "don't cook a baby goat in it's mother's milk" and so on). A couple of interesting bits here too.

• Moses says that even though God laid down the covenant law at Mt. Sinai, he wasn't actually making the covenant with them, it was with the people alive now. Except that's not what he said then... apparently God lied to them. Fantastic.
• Also, Moses says that at Mt Sinai the people were too afraid to go up the mountain...but at the time, I remember God repeatedly forbidding anyone but Moses from going up there.

Moses also tells them to obey "so that you may live." Always with the threats.

Now we get a whole chapter where Moses tells the Israelites to obey, remember, love, and fear (but mostly obey) God. Also, teach the covenant law to your children, and that they should all think and talk about it almost constantly (when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, etc). And write it on your doors and gates. Because this is totally not excessive.