² Don’t forget how the Lord your God has led you through the desert for the past forty years. He wanted to find out if you were truly willing to obey him and depend on him, ³ so he made you go hungry. Then he gave you manna,^[a] a kind of food that you and your ancestors had never even heard about. The Lord was teaching you that people need more than food to live—they need every word that the Lord has spoken.

¹⁴ But when all this happens, don’t be proud! Don’t forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and that it was the Lord who set you free. ¹⁵ Remember how he led you in that huge and frightening desert where poisonous snakes and scorpions live. There was no water, but the Lord split open a rock, and water poured out so you could drink. ¹⁶ He also gave you manna,^[a] a kind of food your ancestors had never even heard about. The Lord was testing you to make you trust him, so that later on he could be good to you.