Love and Serve the Lord

¹e“You shall therefore love the Lord your God and fkeep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. ²And consider today (since I am not speaking to gyour children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline1 of the Lord your God, hhis greatness, ihis mighty hand and his outstretched arm, ³jhis signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, ⁴and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, khow he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day, ⁵and lwhat he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, ⁶and mwhat he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. ⁷For your eyes have seen nall the great work of the Lord that he did.

⁸“You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may obe strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, ⁹and pthat you may live long in the land qthat the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, ra land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it,2 like a garden of vegetables. ¹¹sBut the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, ¹²a land that the Lord your God cares for. tThe eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, uto love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴vhe3 will give the rain for your land in its season, wthe early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. ¹⁵xAnd he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and yyou shall eat and be full. ¹⁶Take care zlest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and aserve other gods and worship them; ¹⁷then bthe anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he cwill shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and dyou will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸e“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and fyou shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ²⁰gYou shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹hthat your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, ias long as the heavens are above the earth. ²²For if jyou will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and kholding fast to him, ²³then the Lord lwill drive out all these nations before you, and you will mdispossess nations greater and mightier than you. ²⁴nEvery place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be ofrom the wilderness to4 the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. ²⁵pNo one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay qthe fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, ras he promised you.

²⁶s“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷tthe blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, ²⁸and uthe curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, vto go after other gods that you have not known. ²⁹And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set wthe blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the xArabah, opposite Gilgal, beside ythe oak5 of Moreh? ³¹For you are zto cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, ³²you shall be careful ato do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.