Love the Lord your God!

6 These are the commands, rules and laws that the Lord your God gave to me. He told me to teach them to you. You must obey them when you go across the Jordan River to live in that land. ² You must respect the Lord your God with fear. You must obey his rules and his commands that I am teaching you. You, your children and your grandchildren must obey them all through your lives. If you do that, you will enjoy a long life.

³ Listen, Israelites! Be careful to obey God's rules. If you do that, everything will be well for you. You will have many children. You will live in a land where there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised that this will happen.

⁴ Listen, Israelites! The Lord alone is our God. There is no other true God. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your mind and with all your strength. Love him with all that you are. ⁶ Always think about these commands that I am giving you today. ⁷ Teach them to your children at all times. Talk about them when you sit together at home. Talk about them as you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as signs on your arms and on your heads, so that you remember them. ⁹ Write them on the wood beside the doors of your houses and on your gates.

¹⁰ The Lord your God will soon bring you into a land that has large, beautiful cities that you did not build. That is the land that he promised to give to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ¹¹ It has houses that are full of good things that you did not put into them. There are wells of water that you did not dig. There are fields with grapes and olive trees that you did not plant. You will be able to eat as much as you want. ¹² But be careful that you do not forget the Lord. He rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves.

¹³ You must respect and obey the Lord your God. Serve only him. If you make a serious promise, only use his name to make it strong. ¹⁴ Do not try to serve other gods. They are the gods that the people who live around you worship. ¹⁵ The Lord your God lives among you. He wants you to belong to him alone. If you worship other gods, he will be very angry with you. He will completely destroy you from the whole earth.

¹⁶ Do not test the Lord your God, to see what he will do. That is what you did at Massah. ¹⁷ Be careful to obey his commands. Remember the laws and the rules that he has told you to obey. ¹⁸ Do things that the Lord says are right and good. If you do that, you will be happy in everything that you do. You will go into the good land that he promised to your ancestors, and that will be your home. ¹⁹ You will be able to chase out all your enemies, as the Lord has promised.

²⁰ One day, your children may say to you, ‘Please tell us about the rules and laws that the Lord our God commanded us to obey.’

²¹ Then you must tell them, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. But the Lord used his great power to rescue us. ²² We saw him do great and powerful miracles that brought trouble to the Egyptians, and to Pharaoh himself and his family. ²³ The Lord rescued us from Egypt so that he could give us another land to live in. That is the land that he promised to our ancestors. ²⁴ The Lord commanded us to obey all these rules and to respect him with fear. If we do that, we will always live happily and the Lord will keep us safe, as he has done until now. ²⁵ We must be careful to obey all the commands of the Lord our God. If we do what he has told us, he will be pleased with us as people who do what is right.’