And because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants after them. He brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,

but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

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.

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,

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.

The Essence of the Law

So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.

who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing.

You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Rewards for Obedience

You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always.

you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.

But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you’, because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you,

The Right of the Firstborn

If a man has two wives, one of them loved and the other disliked, and if both the loved and the disliked have borne him sons, the firstborn being the son of the one who is disliked,

then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he is not permitted to treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the disliked, who is the firstborn.

(Yet the Lord your God refused to heed Balaam; the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you.)

Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.