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29 When the Lord, your God, brings you into the land which you are to enter and possess, then on Mount Gerizim you shall pronounce the blessing,(A) on Mount Ebal, the curse.[a]

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Footnotes

  1. 11:29 For the full ceremony of blessing and curse, see chaps. 27–28. Gerizim and Ebal are mountains in Samaria, separated by a deep ravine.

When you cross the Jordan, on Mount Ebal you shall set up these stones concerning which I command you today, and coat them with plaster,

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33 And all Israel, resident alien and native alike, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on either side of the ark facing the levitical priests who were carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord.(A) Half of them were facing Mount Gerizim and half Mount Ebal, just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had first commanded for the blessing of the people of Israel.

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Psalm 122[a]

A Pilgrim’s Prayer for Jerusalem

A song of ascents. Of David.

I

I rejoiced when they said to me,
    “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”(A)
And now our feet are standing
    within your gates, Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, built as a city,
    walled round about.[b](B)
There the tribes go up,
    the tribes of the Lord,
As it was decreed for Israel,
    to give thanks to the name of the Lord.(C)
There are the thrones of justice,
    the thrones of the house of David.

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 122 A song of Zion, sung by pilgrims obeying the law to visit Jerusalem three times on a journey. The singer anticipates joining the procession into the city (Ps 122:1–3). Jerusalem is a place of encounter, where the people praise God (Ps 122:4) and hear the divine justice mediated by the king (Ps 122:5). The very buildings bespeak God’s power (cf. Ps 48:13–15). May the grace of this place transform the people’s lives (Ps 122:6–9)!
  2. 122:3 Walled round about: lit., “which is joined to it,” probably referring both to the density of the buildings and to the dense population.