Passage Resources Hebrew/Greek Your Content
Previous Next
Add parallel Print Page Options
Close CJB

Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25
Complete Jewish Bible

Parashah 46: ‘Ekev (Because) 7:12–11:25

12 “Because you are listening to these rulings, keeping and obeying them, Adonai your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy that he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you, bless you and increase your numbers; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground — your grain, wine, olive oil and the young of your cattle and sheep — in the land he swore to your ancestors that he would give you. 14 You will be blessed more than all other peoples; there will not be a sterile male or female among you, and the same with your livestock. 15 Adonai will remove all illness from you — he will not afflict you with any of Egypt’s dreadful diseases, which you have known; instead, he will lay them on those who hate you. 16 You are to devour all the peoples that Adonai your God hands over to you — show them no pity, and do not serve their gods, because that will become a trap for you. 17 If you think to yourselves, ‘These nations outnumber us; how can we dispossess them?’ 18 nevertheless, you are not to be afraid of them; you are to remember well what Adonai your God did to Pharaoh and all of Egypt — 19 the great ordeals which you yourself saw, and the signs, wonders, strong hand and outstretched arm by which Adonai your God brought you out. Adonai will do the same to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover, Adonai your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left and those who hide themselves perish ahead of you. 21 You are not to be frightened of them, because Adonai your God is there with you, a God great and fearsome. 22 Adonai your God will expel those nations ahead of you little by little; you can’t put an end to them all at once, or the wild animals will become too numerous for you. 23 Nevertheless, Adonai your God will give them over to you, sending one disaster after another upon them until they have been destroyed. 24 He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their name from under heaven; none of them will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25 You are to burn up completely the carved statues of their gods. Don’t be greedy for the silver or gold on them; don’t take it with you, or you will be trapped by it; for it is abhorrent to Adonai your God. 26 Don’t bring something abhorrent into your house, or you will share in the curse that is on it; instead, you are to detest it completely, loathe it utterly; for it is set apart for destruction.

8 “All the mitzvot I am giving you today you are to take care to obey, so that you will live, increase your numbers, enter and take possession of the land Adonai swore about to your ancestors. 2 You are to remember everything of the way in which Adonai led you these forty years in the desert, humbling and testing you in order to know what was in your heart — whether you would obey his mitzvot or not. 3 He humbled you, allowing you to become hungry, and then fed you with man, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that a person does not live on food alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of Adonai. 4 During these forty years the clothing you were wearing didn’t grow old, and your feet didn’t swell up. 5 Think deeply about it: Adonai was disciplining you, just as a man disciplines his child. 6 So obey the mitzvot of Adonai your God, living as he directs and fearing him. 7 For Adonai your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams, springs and water welling up from the depths in valleys and on hillsides. 8 It is a land of wheat and barley, grapevines, fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land where you will eat food in abundance and lack nothing in it; a land where the stones contain iron and the hills can be mined for copper. 10 So you will eat and be satisfied, and you will bless Adonai your God for the good land he has given you.

(ii) 11 “Be careful not to forget Adonai your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today. 12 Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and lived in them, 13 and increased your herds, flocks, silver, gold and everything else you own, 14 you will become proud-hearted. Forgetting Adonai your God — who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves; 15 who led you through the vast and fearsome desert, with its poisonous snakes, scorpions and waterless, thirsty ground; who brought water out of flint rock for you; 16 who fed you in the desert with man, unknown to your ancestors; all the while humbling and testing you in order to do you good in the end — 17 you will think to yourself, ‘My own power and the strength of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 No, you are to remember Adonai your God, because it is he who is giving you the power to get wealth, in order to confirm his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as is happening even today. 19 If you forget Adonai your God, follow other gods and serve and worship them, I am warning you in advance today that you will certainly perish. 20 You will perish just like the nations that Adonai is causing to perish ahead of you, because you will not have heeded the voice of Adonai your God.”

9 “Listen, Isra’el! You are to cross the Yarden today, to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, great cities fortified up to the sky; 2 a people great and tall, the ‘Anakim, whom you know about and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of ‘Anak?’ 3 Therefore understand today that Adonai your God will himself cross ahead of you as a devouring fire; he will destroy them and bring them down before you. Thus will you drive them out and cause them to perish quickly, as Adonai has said to you.

(iii) 4 “Don’t think to yourself, after your God has pushed them out ahead of you, ‘It is to reward my righteousness that Adonai has brought me in to take possession of this land.’ No, it is because these nations have been so wicked that Adonai is driving them out ahead of you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness, or because your heart is so upright, that you go in to take possession of their land; but to punish the wickedness of these nations that Adonai your God is driving them out ahead of you, and also to confirm the word which Adonai swore to your ancestors, Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov. 6 Therefore, understand that it is not for your righteousness that Adonai your God is giving you this good land to possess.

“For you are a stiffnecked people! 7 Remember, don’t forget, how you made Adonai your God angry in the desert. From the day you left the land of Egypt till you arrived at this place, you have been rebelling against Adonai. 8 Also in Horev you made Adonai angry — Adonai was angry enough with you to destroy you! 9 I had gone up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets on which was written the covenant Adonai had made with you. I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights without eating food or drinking water. 10 Then Adonai gave me the two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God; and on them was written every word Adonai had said to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly. 11 Yes, after forty days and nights Adonai gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then Adonai said to me, ‘Get up, and hurry down from here, because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have become corrupt. So quickly have they turned aside from the way I ordered them to follow! They have made themselves a metal image!’ 13 Moreover, Adonai said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and what a stiffnecked people they are! 14 Let me alone, so that I can put an end to them and blot out their name from under heaven! I will make out of you a nation bigger and stronger than they.’ 15 I came down from the mountain. The mountain was blazing fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 I looked, and there, you had sinned against Adonai your God! You had made yourselves a metal calf, you had turned aside quickly from the way Adonai had ordered you to follow. 17 I seized the two tablets, threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 Then I fell down before Adonai, as I had the first time, for forty days and nights, during which time I neither ate food nor drank water, all because of the sin you committed by doing what was evil in the sight of Adonai and thus provoking him. 19 I was terrified that because of how angry Adonai was at you, of how heatedly displeased he was, that he would destroy you. But Adonai listened to me that time too. 20 In addition, Adonai was very angry with Aharon and would have destroyed him; but I prayed for Aharon also at the same time. 21 I took your sin, the calf you had made, and burned it up in the fire, beat it to pieces, and ground it up still smaller, until it was as fine as dust; then I threw its dust into the stream coming down from the mountain.

22 “Again at Tav‘erah, Massah and Kivrot-HaTa’avah you made Adonai angry; 23 and when Adonai sent you off from Kadesh-Barnea by saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land I have given you,’ you rebelled against the order of Adonai your God — you neither trusted him nor heeded what he said. 24 You have been rebelling against Adonai from the day I first knew you!

25 “So I fell down before Adonai for those forty days and nights; and I lay there; because Adonai had said he would destroy you. 26 I prayed to Adonai ; I said, ‘Adonai Elohim! Don’t destroy your people, your inheritance! You redeemed them through your greatness, you brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand! 27 Remember your servants Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov! Don’t focus on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or on their sin. 28 Otherwise, the land you brought us out of will say, “It is because Adonai wasn’t able to bring them into the land he promised them and because he hated them that he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” 29 But in fact they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.’

10 (iv) “At that time Adonai said to me, ‘Cut yourself two stone tablets like the first ones, come up to me on the mountain, and make yourself an ark of wood. 2 I will inscribe on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to put them in the ark.’ 3 So I made an ark of acacia-wood and cut two stone tablets like the first, then climbed the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 He inscribed the tablets with the same inscription as before, the Ten Words which Adonai proclaimed to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly; and Adonai gave them to me. 5 I turned, came down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made; and there they remain; as Adonai ordered me.

6 “The people of Isra’el traveled from the wells of B’nei-Ya‘akan to Moserah, where Aharon died and was buried; and El‘azar his son took his place, serving in the office of cohen. 7 From there they traveled to Gudgod, and from Gudgod to Yotvatah, a region with running streams. 8 At that time Adonai set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark for the covenant of Adonai and to stand before Adonai to serve him and to bless in his name, as they still do today. 9 This is why Levi has no share or inheritance with his brothers; Adonai is his inheritance, as Adonai your God had said to him.

10 “I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as previously; and Adonai listened to me that time too — Adonai would not destroy you. 11 Then Adonai said to me, ‘Get up, and go on your way at the head of the people, so that they can enter and take possession of the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them.’

(v) 12 “So now, Isra’el, all that Adonai your God asks from you is to fear Adonai your God, follow all his ways, love him and serve Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being; 13 to obey, for your own good, the mitzvot and regulations of Adonai which I am giving you today. 14 See, the sky, the heaven beyond the sky, the earth and everything on it all belong to Adonai your God. 15 Only Adonai took enough pleasure in your ancestors to love them and choose their descendants after them — yourselves — above all peoples, as he still does today. 16 Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart; and don’t be stiffnecked any longer! 17 For Adonai your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awesome God, who has no favorites and accepts no bribes. 18 He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Therefore you are to love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. 20 You are to fear Adonai your God, serve him, cling to him and swear by his name. 21 He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things, which you have seen with your own eyes. 22 Your ancestors went down into Egypt with only seventy people, but now Adonai your God has made your numbers as many as the stars in the sky!

11 “Therefore, you are to love Adonai your God and always obey his commission, regulations, rulings and mitzvot. 2 Today it is you I am addressing — not your children, who haven’t known or experienced the discipline of Adonai your God, his greatness, his strong hand, his outstretched arm, 3 his signs and his actions which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to his entire country. 4 They didn’t experience what he did to Egypt’s army, horses and chariots — how Adonai overwhelmed them with the water of the Sea of Suf as they were pursuing you, so that they remain destroyed to this day. 5 They didn’t experience what he kept doing for you in the desert until you arrived at this place; 6 or what he did to Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eli’av the descendant of Re’uven — how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, tents and every living thing in their company, there in front of all Isra’el. 7 But you have seen with your own eyes all these great deeds of Adonai. 8 Therefore, you are to keep every mitzvah I am giving you today; so that you will be strong enough to go in and take possession of the land you are crossing over to conquer; 9 and so that you will live long in the land Adonai swore to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

(vi) 10 “For the land you are entering in order to take possession of it isn’t like the land of Egypt. There you would sow your seed and had to use your feet to operate its irrigation system, as in a vegetable garden. 11 But the land you are crossing over to take possession of is a land of hills and valleys, which soaks up water when rain falls from the sky. 12 It is a land Adonai your God cares for. The eyes of Adonai your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

13 “So if you listen carefully to my mitzvot which I am giving you today, to love Adonai your God and serve him with all your heart and all your being; 14 then, [says Adonai,] ‘I will give your land its rain at the right seasons, including the early fall rains and the late spring rains; so that you can gather in your wheat, new wine and olive oil; 15 and I will give your fields grass for your livestock; with the result that you will eat and be satisfied.’ 16 But be careful not to let yourselves be seduced, so that you turn aside, serving other gods and worshipping them. 17 If you do, the anger of Adonai will blaze up against you. He will shut up the sky, so that there will be no rain. The ground will not yield its produce, and you will quickly pass away from the good land Adonai is giving you. 18 Therefore, you are to store up these words of mine in your heart and in all your being; tie them on your hand as a sign; put them at the front of a headband around your forehead; 19 teach them carefully to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up; 20 and write them on the door-frames of your house and on your gates — 21 so that you and your children will live long on the land Adonai swore to your ancestors that he would give them for as long as there is sky above the earth.

(vii & Maftir) 22 “For if you will take care to obey all these mitzvot I am giving you, to do them, to love Adonai your God, to follow all his ways and to cling to him, 23 then Adonai will expel all these nations ahead of you; and you will dispossess nations bigger and stronger than you are. 24 Wherever the sole of your foot steps will be yours; your territory will extend from the desert to the L’vanon and from the River, the Euphrates River, to the Western Sea. 25 No one will be able to withstand you; Adonai your God will place the fear and dread of you on all the land you step on, as he told you.

Haftarah ‘Ekev: Yesha‘yahu (Isaiah) 49:14–51:3

B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah ‘Ekev: Mattityahu (Matthew) 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13; Ya‘akov (James) 5:7–11

Listen to Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25
Close NKJV

Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25
New King James Version

Blessings of Obedience(A)

12 “Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. 13 And He will (B)love you and bless you and [a]multiply you; (C)He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He [b]swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female (D)barren among you or among your livestock. 15 And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the (E)terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. 16 Also you shall [c]destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will (F)be a snare to you.

17 “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— 18 you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall (G)remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 (H)the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 (I)Moreover the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. 21 You shall not be terrified of them; for the Lord your God, the great and awesome God, is among you. 22 And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you (J)little by little; you will be unable to [d]destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 23 But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. 24 And (K)He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; (L)no one shall be able to stand [e]against you until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not (M)covet[f] the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. 26 Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, (N)for it is an [g]accursed thing.

Remember the Lord Your God

8 “Every commandment which I command you today (O)you must [h]be careful to observe, that you may live and (P)multiply,[i] and go in and possess the land of which the Lord [j]swore to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God (Q)led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and (R)test you, (S)to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, (T)allowed you to hunger, and (U)fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall (V)not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. 4 (W)Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5 (X)You should [k]know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.

6 “Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, (Y)to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, (Z)a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 (AA)When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

11 “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, 12 (AB)lest—when you have eaten and are [l]full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are [m]multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; 14 (AC)when your heart [n]is lifted up, and you (AD)forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; 15 who (AE)led you through that great and terrible wilderness, (AF)in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; (AG)who brought water for you out of the flinty rock; 16 who fed you in the wilderness with (AH)manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, (AI)to do you good in the end— 17 then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’

18 “And you shall remember the Lord your God, (AJ)for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, (AK)that He may [o]establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, (AL)I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. 20 As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, (AM)so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

Israel’s Rebellions Reviewed(AN)

9 “Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the (AO)descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’ 3 Therefore understand today that the Lord your God is He who (AP)goes over before you as a (AQ)consuming fire. (AR)He will destroy them and bring them down before you; (AS)so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you.

4 (AT)“Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is (AU)because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. 5 (AV)It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may [p]fulfill the (AW)word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a (AX)stiff-necked[q] people.

7 “Remember! Do not forget how you (AY)provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. (AZ)From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Also (BA)in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. 9 (BB)When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and (BC)forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 (BD)Then the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire (BE)in[r] the day of the assembly. 11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

12 “Then the Lord said to me, (BF)‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have (BG)quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.’

13 “Furthermore (BH)the Lord spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed (BI)they are a [s]stiff-necked people. 14 (BJ)Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and (BK)blot out their name from under heaven; (BL)and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’

15 (BM)“So I turned and came down from the mountain, and (BN)the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And (BO)I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. 17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and (BP)broke them before your eyes. 18 And I (BQ)fell[t] down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. 19 (BR)For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. (BS)But the Lord listened to me at that time also. 20 And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I (BT)threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.

22 “Also at (BU)Taberah and (BV)Massah and (BW)Kibroth Hattaavah you [u]provoked the Lord to wrath. 23 Likewise, (BX)when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and (BY)you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. 24 (BZ)You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

25 (CA)“Thus I [v]prostrated myself before the Lord; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the Lord had said He would destroy you. 26 Therefore I prayed to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and (CB)Your inheritance whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin, 28 lest the land from which You brought us should say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.” 29 Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.’

The Second Pair of Tablets(CC)

10 “At that time the Lord said to me, [w]‘Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an (CD)ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and (CE)you shall put them in the ark.’

3 “So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. 4 And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten [x]Commandments, (CF)which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. 5 Then I turned and (CG)came down from the mountain, and (CH)put the tablets in the ark which I had made; (CI)and there they are, just as the Lord commanded me.”

6 (Now the children of Israel journeyed from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah, where Aaron (CJ)died, and where he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered as priest in his [y]stead. 7 (CK)From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of [z]rivers of water. 8 At that time (CL)the Lord [aa]separated the tribe of Levi (CM)to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, (CN)to stand before the Lord to minister to Him and (CO)to bless in His name, to this day. 9 (CP)Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God promised him.)

10 “As at the first time, (CQ)I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; (CR)the Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to destroy you. 11 (CS)Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, begin your journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

The Essence of the Law

12 “And now, Israel, (CT)what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to (CU)love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today (CV)for your [ab]good? 14 Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the (CW)Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. 15 The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their [ac]descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. 16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your (CX)heart, and be (CY)stiff-necked[ad] no longer. 17 For the Lord your God is (CZ)God of gods and (DA)Lord of lords, the great God, (DB)mighty and awesome, who (DC)shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 (DD)He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. 19 Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20 (DE)You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. 21 He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.

Love and Obedience Rewarded

11 “Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. 2 Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the [ae]chastening of the Lord your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm— 3 His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4 what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: (DF)how He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; 5 what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; 6 and (DG)what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was [af]in their possession, in the midst of all Israel— 7 but your eyes have (DH)seen every great [ag]act of the Lord which He did.

8 “Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may (DI)be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, 9 and (DJ)that you may prolong your days in the land (DK)which the Lord [ah]swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, (DL)‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’ 10 For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11 (DM)but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, 12 a land for which the Lord your God cares; (DN)the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

13 ‘And it shall be that if you earnestly [ai]obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then (DO)I[aj] will give you the rain for your land in its season, (DP)the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 (DQ)And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may (DR)eat and be [ak]filled.’ 16 Take heed to yourselves, (DS)lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and (DT)serve other gods and worship them, 17 lest (DU)the Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He (DV)shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and (DW)you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.

18 “Therefore (DX)you shall [al]lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your (DY)soul, and (DZ)bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 (EA)You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 (EB)And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that (EC)your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like (ED)the days of the heavens above the earth.

22 “For if (EE)you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and (EF)to hold fast to Him— 23 then the Lord will (EG)drive out all these nations from before you, and you will (EH)dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. 24 (EI)Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: (EJ)from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the [am]Western Sea, shall be your territory. 25 No man shall be able to (EK)stand [an]against you; the Lord your God will put the (EL)dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 7:13 cause you to increase
  2. Deuteronomy 7:13 promised
  3. Deuteronomy 7:16 consume
  4. Deuteronomy 7:22 consume
  5. Deuteronomy 7:24 before
  6. Deuteronomy 7:25 desire
  7. Deuteronomy 7:26 devoted or banned
  8. Deuteronomy 8:1 observe to do
  9. Deuteronomy 8:1 increase in number
  10. Deuteronomy 8:1 promised
  11. Deuteronomy 8:5 consider
  12. Deuteronomy 8:12 satisfied
  13. Deuteronomy 8:13 increased
  14. Deuteronomy 8:14 becomes proud
  15. Deuteronomy 8:18 confirm
  16. Deuteronomy 9:5 perform
  17. Deuteronomy 9:6 stubborn or rebellious
  18. Deuteronomy 9:10 when you were all gathered together
  19. Deuteronomy 9:13 stubborn or rebellious
  20. Deuteronomy 9:18 prostrated myself
  21. Deuteronomy 9:22 caused the Lord to be angry
  22. Deuteronomy 9:25 fell down
  23. Deuteronomy 10:1 Cut out
  24. Deuteronomy 10:4 Lit. Words
  25. Deuteronomy 10:6 place
  26. Deuteronomy 10:7 brooks
  27. Deuteronomy 10:8 set apart
  28. Deuteronomy 10:13 benefit or welfare
  29. Deuteronomy 10:15 Lit. seed
  30. Deuteronomy 10:16 rebellious
  31. Deuteronomy 11:2 discipline
  32. Deuteronomy 11:6 at their feet
  33. Deuteronomy 11:7 work
  34. Deuteronomy 11:9 promised
  35. Deuteronomy 11:13 Lit. listen to
  36. Deuteronomy 11:14 So with MT, Tg.; Sam., LXX, Vg. He
  37. Deuteronomy 11:15 satisfied
  38. Deuteronomy 11:18 Lit. put
  39. Deuteronomy 11:24 Mediterranean
  40. Deuteronomy 11:25 before
Next
Deuteronomy 6
Deuteronomy 12
Next
dropdown
Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.

New King James Version (NKJV)

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Learn the Bible in 30 days