A Chosen People

7 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you^(A)— ² and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.^{(B) 3} Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,^{(C) 4} for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.^{(D) 5} But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles,^[a] and burn their idols with fire.^{(E) 6} For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.^(F)

⁷ “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.^{(G) 8} It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.^{(H) 9} Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,^{(I) 10} and who repays in their own person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him. ¹¹ Therefore, observe diligently the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that I am commanding you today.

Blessings for Obedience

¹² “If you heed these ordinances by diligently observing them, the Lord your God will maintain with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors;^{(J) 13} he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you.^{(K) 14} You shall be the most blessed of peoples, with neither sterility nor barrenness among you or your livestock.^{(L) 15} The Lord will turn away from you every illness; all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he will not inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.^{(M) 16} You shall devour all the peoples that the Lord your God is giving over to you, showing them no pity; you shall not serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.^(N)

¹⁷ “If you say to yourself, ‘These nations are more numerous than I; how can I dispossess them?’ ¹⁸ do not be afraid of them. Just remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,^{(O) 19} the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.^{(P) 20} Moreover, the Lord your God will send swarms of hornets^[b] against them until even the survivors and the fugitives are destroyed.^{(Q) 21} Have no dread of them, for the Lord your God, who is present with you, is a great and awesome God.^{(R) 22} The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to make a quick end of them, otherwise the wild animals would become too numerous for you.^{(S) 23} But the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into great panic until they are destroyed. ²⁴ He will hand their kings over to you, and you shall blot out their name from under heaven; no one will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.^{(T) 25} The images of their gods you shall burn with fire. Do not covet the silver or the gold that is on them and take it for yourself, because you could be ensnared by it, for it is abhorrent to the Lord your God.^{(U) 26} Do not bring an abhorrent thing into your house, or you will be set apart for destruction like it. You must utterly detest and abhor it, for it is set apart for destruction.

A Warning Not to Forget God in Prosperity

8 “The entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors.^{(V) 2} Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.^{(W) 3} He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.^{(X) 4} The clothes on your back did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years.^{(Y) 5} Know, then, in your heart that, as a parent disciplines a child, so the Lord your God disciplines you.^{(Z) 6} Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.^{(AA) 7} For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills,^{(AB) 8} a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, ⁹ a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. ¹⁰ You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.^(AC)

¹¹ “Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes that I am commanding you today. ¹² When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them ¹³ and when your herds and flocks have multiplied and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,^{(AD) 15} who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous^[c] snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock.^{(AE) 16} He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you and in the end to do you good.^{(AF) 17} Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ ¹⁸ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.^{(AG) 19} If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.^{(AH) 20} Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

The Consequences of Rebelling against God

9 “Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan today, to go in and dispossess nations larger and mightier than you, great cities, fortified to the heavens,^{(AI) 2} a strong and tall people, the offspring of the Anakim, whom you know. You have heard it said, ‘Who can stand up to the Anakim?’^{(AJ) 3} Know, then, today that the Lord your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.^(AK)

⁴ “When the Lord your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land’; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.^{(AL) 5} It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the Lord made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.^(AM)

⁶ “Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.^{(AN) 7} Remember; do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.

⁸ “Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.^{(AO) 9} When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.^{(AP) 10} And the Lord gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.^{(AQ) 11} At the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, ‘Get up; go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded them; they have cast an image for themselves.’^{(AR) 13} Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people.^{(AS) 14} Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.’^(AT)

¹⁵ “So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.^{(AU) 16} Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God, by casting for yourselves an image;^[d] you had been quick to turn from the way that the Lord had commanded you.^{(AV) 17} So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. ¹⁸ Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the Lord by doing what was evil in his sight.^{(AW) 19} For I was afraid that the anger that the Lord bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.^{(AX) 20} The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time. ²¹ Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust, and I threw the dust into the stream that runs down the mountain.^(AY)

²² “At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the Lord to wrath.^{(AZ) 23} And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,’ you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has^[e] known you.^(BA)

²⁵ “Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate before the Lord when the Lord intended to destroy you,^{(BB) 26} I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Lord God, do not destroy your people, your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.^{(BC) 27} Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin, ²⁸ lest the land from which you have brought us say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.” ²⁹ For they are your people, your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’^(BD)

¹⁹ And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples^[a] went out of the city.

The Lesson from the Withered Fig Tree

²⁰ In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.^{(A) 21} Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”^{(B) 22} Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.^{[b](C) 23} Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.^{(D) 24} So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received^[c] it, and it will be yours.^(E)

²⁵ “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”^[d](F)

Jesus’s Authority Is Questioned

²⁷ Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him ²⁸ and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?” ²⁹ Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰ Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.” ³¹ They argued with one another, “What should we say?^[e] If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ³² But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?”—they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet.^{(G) 33} So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”