Deuteronomy 11:8-15
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
The Gift of Rain. 8 (A)So keep all the commandments I give you today, that you may be strong enough to enter in and take possession of the land that you are crossing over to possess, 9 and that you may have long life on the land which the Lord swore to your ancestors he would give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 The land you are to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you would sow your seed and then water it by hand,[a] as in a vegetable garden. 11 (B)No, the land into which you are crossing to take possession is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks in rain from the heavens, 12 a land which the Lord, your God, looks after; the eyes of the Lord, your God, are upon it continually through the year, from beginning to end.
13 [b](C)If, then, you truly listen to my commandments which I give you today, loving and serving the Lord, your God, with your whole heart and your whole being, 14 I will give the seasonal rain to your land, the early rain[c] and the late rain, that you may have your grain, wine and oil to gather in; 15 and I will bring forth grass in your fields for your animals. Thus you may eat and be satisfied.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 11:10 By hand: lit., “by foot,” probably referring to a kind of mechanism for irrigation from the Nile.
- 11:13–15 Here as elsewhere Moses shifts between speaking of the Lord in the third person and speaking for the Lord in the first person.
- 11:14 The early rain: the rains which begin in October or November and continue intermittently throughout the winter. The late rain: the heavy showers of March and April. In Palestine crops are sown in autumn and harvested in spring and summer.
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