Deuteronomy 8-9

Christian Standard Bible

Remember the Lord

8 “Carefully follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase, and may enter and take possession of the land^(A) the Lord swore to your ancestors. ² Remember that the Lord your God led you on the entire journey these forty years in the wilderness, so that he might humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. ³ He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then he gave you manna to eat, which you and your ancestors had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.^{(B) 4} Your clothing did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years.^{(C) 5} Keep in mind that the Lord your God has been disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. ⁶ So keep the commands of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land,^(D) a land with streams, springs, and deep water sources, flowing in both valleys and hills; ⁸ a land of wheat, barley, vines, figs, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; ⁹ a land where you will eat food without shortage, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you will mine copper. ¹⁰ When you eat and are full,^(E) you will bless the Lord your God for the good land^(F) he has given you.

¹¹ “Be careful that you don’t forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commands, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today. ¹² When you eat and are full, and build beautiful houses to live in, ¹³ and your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold multiply, and everything else you have increases, ¹⁴ be careful that your heart doesn’t become proud and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.^{(G) 15} He led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its poisonous^[a] snakes and scorpions, a thirsty land where there was no water. He brought water out of the flint rock for you. ¹⁶ He fed you in the wilderness with manna,^(H) which your ancestors had not known, in order to humble and test you, so that in the end he might cause you to prosper. ¹⁷ You may say to yourself, ‘My power and my own ability have gained this wealth for me,’ ¹⁸ but remember that the Lord your God gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm his covenant he swore to your ancestors,^(I) as it is today. ¹⁹ If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve them and bow in worship to them, I testify against you today that you will certainly perish.^{(J) 20} Like the nations the Lord is about to destroy before you, you will perish if you do not obey the Lord your God.

Warning against Self-Righteousness

9 “Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to enter and drive out nations greater and stronger than you,^(K) with large cities fortified to the heavens.^{(L) 2} The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim.^(M) You know about them and you have heard it said about them, ‘Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?’ ^{(N) 3} But understand that today the Lord your God will cross over ahead of you^(O) as a consuming fire;^(P) he will devastate and subdue them before you. You will drive them out and destroy them swiftly,^(Q) as the Lord has told you. ⁴ When the Lord your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord brought me in to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’^(R) Instead, the Lord will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness.^{(S) 5} You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the Lord your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to fulfill the promise he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ Understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land^(T) to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.^(U)

Israel’s Rebellion and Moses’s Intercession

⁷ “Remember^(V) and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God in the wilderness. You have been rebelling against the Lord from the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place. ⁸ You provoked the Lord at Horeb, and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. ⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant^(W) the Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat food or drink water. ¹⁰ On the day of the assembly the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by God’s finger.^(X) The exact words were on them, which the Lord spoke to you from the fire on the mountain.^{(Y) 11} The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant, at the end of the forty days and forty nights.

¹² “The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go down immediately from here. For your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way that I commanded them; they have made a cast image for themselves.’^{(Z) 13} The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁴ Leave me alone, and I will destroy them and blot out their name under heaven.^(AA) Then I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.’

¹⁵ “So I went back down the mountain, while it was blazing with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. ¹⁶ I saw how you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made a calf image for yourselves. You had quickly turned from the way the Lord had commanded for you. ¹⁷ So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my hands, shattering them before your eyes.^{(AB) 18} I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and angering him. ¹⁹ I was afraid of the fierce anger the Lord had directed against you,^(AC) because he was about to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me on that occasion.^{(AD) 20} The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. But I prayed for Aaron at that time also. ²¹ I took the sinful calf you had made and burned it. I crushed it, thoroughly grinding it to powder as fine as dust, and threw its dust into the stream that came down from the mountain.^(AE)

²² “You continued to provoke the Lord at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah.^{(AF) 23} When the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, he said, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you’; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not believe or obey him.^{(AG) 24} You have been rebelling against the Lord ever since I have^[b] known you.^(AH)

²⁵ “I fell down in the presence of the Lord forty days and forty nights because the Lord had threatened to destroy you. ²⁶ I prayed to the Lord:

Lord God, do not annihilate your people, your inheritance, whom you redeemed^(AI) through your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. ²⁷ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Disregard this people’s stubbornness, and their wickedness and sin. ²⁸ Otherwise, those in the land you brought us from will say, ‘Because the Lord wasn’t able to bring them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’^{(AJ) 29} But they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and outstretched arm.^(AK)