Deuteronomy 10:12-11:25

New King James Version

The Essence of the Law

¹² “And now, Israel, ^(A)what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to ^(B)love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today ^(C)for your ^[a]good? ¹⁴ Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the ^(D)Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. ¹⁵ The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their ^[b]descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. ¹⁶ Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your ^(E)heart, and be ^(F)stiff-necked^[c] no longer. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God is ^(G)God of gods and ^(H)Lord of lords, the great God, ^(I)mighty and awesome, who ^(J)shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. ^18 (K)He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. ^20 (L)You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. ²¹ He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. ²² Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.

Love and Obedience Rewarded

11 “Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. ² Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the ^[d]chastening of the Lord your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm— ³ His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; ⁴ what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: ^(M)how He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; ⁵ what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; ⁶ and ^(N)what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was ^[e]in their possession, in the midst of all Israel— ⁷ but your eyes have ^(O)seen every great ^[f]act of the Lord which He did.

⁸ “Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may ^(P)be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, ⁹ and ^(Q)that you may prolong your days in the land ^(R)which the Lord ^[g]swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ^(S)‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’ ¹⁰ For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; ^11 (T)but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, ¹² a land for which the Lord your God cares; ^(U)the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

¹³ ‘And it shall be that if you earnestly ^[h]obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ then ^(V)I^[i] will give you the rain for your land in its season, ^(W)the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. ^15 (X)And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may ^(Y)eat and be ^[j]filled.’ ¹⁶ Take heed to yourselves, ^(Z)lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and ^(AA)serve other gods and worship them, ¹⁷ lest ^(AB)the Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He ^(AC)shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and ^(AD)you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸ “Therefore ^(AE)you shall ^[k]lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your ^(AF)soul, and ^(AG)bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ^19 (AH)You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ^20 (AI)And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹ that ^(AJ)your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like ^(AK)the days of the heavens above the earth.

²² “For if ^(AL)you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and ^(AM)to hold fast to Him— ²³ then the Lord will ^(AN)drive out all these nations from before you, and you will ^(AO)dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. ^24 (AP)Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: ^(AQ)from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the ^[l]Western Sea, shall be your territory. ²⁵ No man shall be able to ^(AR)stand ^[m]against you; the Lord your God will put the ^(AS)dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.