Deuteronomy 9:24-11:15

English Standard Version

²⁴^(A)You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

²⁵^(B)“So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. ²⁶^(C)And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin, ²⁸lest the land from which you brought us say, ^(D)“Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” ²⁹^(E)For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’

New Tablets of Stone

10 “At that time the Lord said to me, ^(F)‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and ^(G)make an ark of wood. ²And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and ^(H)you shall put them in the ark.’ ³So I made an ark ^(I)of acacia wood, and ^(J)cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴And ^(K)he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments^[a] ^(L)that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire ^(M)on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. ⁵Then I turned and ^(N)came down from the mountain and ^(O)put the tablets in the ark that I had made. ^(P)And there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”

⁶(The people of Israel ^(Q)journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan^[b] to Moserah. ^(R)There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his place. ⁷^(S)From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water. ⁸At that time ^(T)the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi ^(U)to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord ^(V)to stand before the Lord to minister to him and ^(W)to bless in his name, to this day. ⁹^(X)Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.)

¹⁰^(Y)“I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, ^(Z)and the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you. ¹¹^(AA)And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

Circumcise Your Heart

¹²“And now, Israel, ^(AB)what does the Lord your God require of you, but ^(AC)to fear the Lord your God, ^(AD)to walk in all his ways, ^(AE)to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³and ^(AF)to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today ^(AG)for your good? ¹⁴Behold, ^(AH)to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, ^(AI)the earth with all that is in it. ¹⁵Yet ^(AJ)the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. ¹⁶Circumcise therefore ^(AK)the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer ^(AL)stubborn. ¹⁷For the Lord your God is ^(AM)God of gods and ^(AN)Lord of lords, ^(AO)the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is ^(AP)not partial and takes no bribe. ¹⁸^(AQ)He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹^(AR)Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. ²⁰^(AS)You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and ^(AT)hold fast to him, and ^(AU)by his name you shall swear. ²¹^(AV)He is your praise. He is your God, ^(AW)who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. ²²Your fathers went down to Egypt ^(AX)seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you ^(AY)as numerous as the stars of heaven.

Love and Serve the Lord

11 ^(AZ)“You shall therefore love the Lord your God and ^(BA)keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. ²And consider today (since I am not speaking to ^(BB)your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline^[c] of the Lord your God, ^(BC)his greatness, ^(BD)his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, ³^(BE)his 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, ^(BF)how 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 ^(BG)what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, ⁶and ^(BH)what 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 ^(BI)all 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 ^(BJ)be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, ⁹and ^(BK)that you may live long in the land ^(BL)that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, ^(BM)a 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,^[d] like a garden of vegetables. ¹¹^(BN)But 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. ^(BO)The 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, ^(BP)to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴^(BQ)he^[e] will give the rain for your land in its season, ^(BR)the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. ¹⁵^(BS)And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and ^(BT)you shall eat and be full.