virtues of your commanders, who will take care of what is for your
advantage. And that God, who has been till now your Leader, and by whose
goodwill I have myself been useful to you, will not put a period now to
his providence over you, but as long as you desire to have him your
Protector in your pursuits after virtue, so long will you enjoy his care
over you. Your high priest also Eleazar, as well as Joshua, with the
senate, and chief of your tribes, will go before you, and suggest the
best advices to you; by following which advices you will continue to be
happy: to whom do you give ear without reluctance, as sensible that all
such as know well how to be governed, will also know how to govern, if
they be promoted to that authority themselves. And do not you esteem
liberty to consist in opposing such directions as your governors think
fit to give you for your practice,—as at present indeed you place your
liberty in nothing else but abusing your benefactors; which error if you
can avoid for the time to come, your affairs will be in a better
condition than they have hitherto been. Nor do you ever indulge such a
degree of passion in these matters, as you have oftentimes done when you
have been very angry at me; for you know that I have been oftener in
danger of death from you than from our enemies. What I now put you in
mind of, is not done in order to reproach you; for I do not think it
proper, now I am going out of the world, to bring this to your
remembrance, in order to leave you offended at me, since, at the time
when I underwent those hardships from you, I was not angry at you; but I
do it in order to make you wiser hereafter, and to teach you that this
will be for your security; I mean, that you never be injurious to those
that preside over you, even when you are become rich, as you will be to
a great degree when you have passed over Jordan, and are in possession
of the land of Canaan. Since, when you shall have once proceeded so far
by your wealth, as to a contempt and disregard of virtue, you will also
forfeit the favor of God; and when you have made him your enemy, you
will be beaten in war, and will have the land which you possess taken
away again from you by your enemies, and this with great reproaches upon
your conduct. You will be scattered over the whole world, and will, as
slaves, entirely fill both sea and land; and when once you have had the
experience of what I now say, you will repent, and remember the laws you
have broken, when it is too late. Whence I would advise you, if you
intend to preserve these laws, to leave none of your enemies alive when
you have conquered them, but to look upon it as for your advantage to
destroy them all, lest, if you permit them to live, you taste of their
manners, and thereby corrupt your own proper institutions. I also do
further exhort you, to overthrow their altars, and their groves, and
whatsoever temples they have among them, and to burn all such, their
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