Deuteronomy 6-7

New King James Version

The Greatest Commandment

6 “Now this is ^(A)the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, ²^(B)that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, ^(C)and that your days may be prolonged. ³Therefore hear, O Israel, and ^[a]be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may ^(D)multiply greatly ^(E)as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you—^(F)‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’

⁴^(G)“Hear, O Israel: ^[b]The Lord our God, the Lord is one! ⁵^(H)You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, ^(I)with all your soul, and with all your strength.

⁶“And ^(J)these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. ⁷^(K)You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ⁸^(L)You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹^(M)You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Caution Against Disobedience

¹⁰“So it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which He ^[c]swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities ^(N)which you did not build, ¹¹houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant—^(O)when you have eaten and are full— ¹²then beware, lest you forget the ^(P)Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. ¹³You shall ^(Q)fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and ^(R)shall take oaths in His name. ¹⁴You shall not go after other gods, ^(S)the gods of the peoples who are all around you ¹⁵(for ^(T)the Lord your God is a jealous God ^(U)among you), lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth.

¹⁶^(V)“You shall not ^[d]tempt the Lord your God ^(W)as you ^[e]tempted Him in Massah. ¹⁷You shall ^(X)diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, and His statutes which He has commanded you. ¹⁸And you ^(Y)shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the Lord swore to your fathers, ¹⁹^(Z)to cast out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken.

²⁰^(AA)“When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?’ ²¹then you shall say to your son: ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt ^(AB)with a mighty hand; ²²and the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. ²³Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He ^[f]swore to our fathers. ²⁴And the Lord commanded us to ^[g]observe all these ^[h]statutes, ^(AC)to fear the Lord our God, ^(AD)for our good always, that ^(AE)He might preserve us alive, as it is ^[i]this day. ²⁵Then ^(AF)it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.’

A Chosen People^(AG)

7 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to ^(AH)possess, and has cast out many ^(AI)nations before you, ^(AJ)the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, ²and when the Lord your God delivers ^(AK)them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. ^(AL)You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. ³^(AM)Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. ⁴For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; ^(AN)so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. ⁵But thus you shall deal with them: you shall ^(AO)destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their ^[j]wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.

⁶“For you are a ^[k]holy people to the Lord your God; ^(AP)the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. ⁷The Lord did not set His ^(AQ)love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were ^(AR)the least of all peoples; ⁸but ^(AS)because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep ^(AT)the oath which He swore to your fathers, ^(AU)the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of ^[l]bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹“Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, ^(AV)the faithful God ^(AW)who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; ¹⁰and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not ^[m]be ^(AX)slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. ¹¹Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.

Blessings of Obedience^(AY)

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. ¹³And He will ^(AZ)love you and bless you and ^[n]multiply you; ^(BA)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 ^[o]swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female ^(BB)barren among you or among your livestock. ¹⁵And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the ^(BC)terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. ¹⁶Also you shall ^[p]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 ^(BD)be a snare to you.

¹⁷“If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— ¹⁸you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall ^(BE)remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: ¹⁹^(BF)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^(BG)Moreover the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. ²¹You shall not be terrified of them; for the Lord your God, the great and awesome God, is among you. ²²And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you ^(BH)little by little; you will be unable to ^[q]destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. ²³But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. ²⁴And ^(BI)He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; ^(BJ)no one shall be able to stand ^[r]against you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not ^(BK)covet^[s] 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. ²⁶Nor 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, ^(BL)for it is an ^[t]accursed thing.

Footnotes

Deuteronomy 6:3 Lit. observe to do
Deuteronomy 6:4 Or The Lord is our God, the Lord alone, i.e., the only one
Deuteronomy 6:10 promised
Deuteronomy 6:16 test
Deuteronomy 6:16 tested
Deuteronomy 6:23 promised
Deuteronomy 6:24 do
Deuteronomy 6:24 ordinances
Deuteronomy 6:24 today
Deuteronomy 7:5 Heb. Asherim, Canaanite deities
Deuteronomy 7:6 set-apart
Deuteronomy 7:8 slavery
Deuteronomy 7:10 delay
Deuteronomy 7:13 cause you to increase
Deuteronomy 7:13 promised
Deuteronomy 7:16 consume
Deuteronomy 7:22 consume
Deuteronomy 7:24 before
Deuteronomy 7:25 desire
Deuteronomy 7:26 devoted or banned

Psalm 78:1-8

New King James Version

God’s Kindness to Rebellious Israel

A ^(A)Contemplation^[a] of Asaph.

78 Give ear, O my people, to my law;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
²I will open my mouth in a ^(B)parable;
I will utter ^[b]dark sayings of old,
³Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
⁴^(C)We will not hide them from their children,
^(D)Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord,
And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done.

⁵For ^(E)He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers,
That ^(F)they should make them known to their children;
⁶^(G)That the generation to come might know them,
The children who would be born,
That they may arise and declare them to their children,
⁷That they may set their hope in God,
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments;
⁸And ^(H)may not be like their fathers,
^(I)A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation ^(J)that did not ^[c]set its heart aright,
And whose spirit was not faithful to God.