Because He loved your ancestors, He’s also committed to their descendants who came after them, and that’s why He personally brought you out of Egypt by His own great power.

Instead, those who obey My commands and truly love Me will receive My loyal love endlessly, even for a thousand generations.

You should love Him, your True God, with all your heart and soul, with every ounce of your strength.

Instead, He brought you out of Egypt with overwhelming power and liberated you from slavery to Pharaoh the king because He loved you and was keeping the oath He swore to your ancestors.

I want you to know that the Eternal your God is the only true God. He’s the faithful God who keeps His covenants and shows loyal love for a thousand generations to those who in return love Him and keep His commands.

If you pay attention to these judgments and keep them carefully, the Eternal your God will keep the covenant He made with your ancestors and show you His loyal love.

He’ll love you and bless you and increase your population. He’ll bless your children, and He’ll bless your agriculture. The land He promised your ancestors He’d give you will produce abundantly; and you’ll have grain and wine and olive oil, many cattle, and new flocks.

I saw with my own eyes how you had sinned against the Eternal, your True God: you’d cast an idol in the shape of a young bull! Moses: How quickly you left the path the Eternal commanded you to stay on.

And now, Israel, what is the Eternal your God asking of you? Only that you fear Him, live as He wants you to, and love Him; serve Him with every part of you, heart and soul;

Nevertheless He devotedly loved your ancestors; and out of all the peoples He chose you, their descendants, to be His own, as you still are today.

He enforces His justice for the powerless, such as orphans and widows, and He loves foreigners, making sure they have food and clothing.

You must love those foreigners living with you in the same way. Remember how you were foreigners in the land of Egypt!

Moses: So love the Eternal your God and always obey His requirements, regulations, judgments, and commands.

Eternal One: If you carefully obey My commands which I’m giving you today, and if you love Me and serve Me with your whole heart and soul,

Moses: If you carefully obey all these things I’m commanding you—if you really do love the Eternal your God and live as He wants you to and devote yourselves to Him—

Don’t listen to what that prophet or dreamer says! The Eternal your God is testing you to see whether you really do love Him completely, with your whole heart and soul.

Don’t feel you’ve been cheated when you set your slave free. It would have cost you twice as much to hire someone to do the same work over those six years, and He will bless you in everything you do because of your generosity. But perhaps your slave will say to you at the end of the six years, “I don’t want to be set free! I love you and your whole family. It’s really good for me to be here with you.” You can accept a slave like this into lifetime service. Perform a special ceremony to mark his new status. Have the slave stand right next to the door of your house, take an awl, and drive it through the slave’s ear lobe into the door. Then pull it out. This will make marks in the ear lobe and in the door that will symbolize the slave. Either a male or a female slave can enter lifetime service this way with this physical mark.

Now if you carefully obey the command I’m giving you today, to love the Eternal your God and always do as He wishes, then He will expand your territory as He promised your ancestors; He’ll give you all the land He told your ancestors He’d give them. If that happens, then designate three more cities for yourselves, besides the first three.

But the Eternal your God wouldn’t listen to Balaam, and He turned his curse into a blessing for you because the Eternal your God loves you.

Moses: You’ll be blessed in the city and blessed in the fields.

The Eternal your God will cut away and circumcise the hardness around your hearts and your descendants’ hearts so that you’ll love Him completely, heart and soul, and you’ll live.

If you do what I’ve commanded you today and love the Eternal your God; if you live as He wants you to, if you obey His commands, regulations and judgments, then you’ll live and have many descendants. He will bless you in the land where you’re going to live.

If you love the Eternal your God and listen to His voice and always remain loyal to Him, for He is your life, then you’ll be able to live a long time in the land the Eternal promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Moses: The Eternal saw this and rejected them because His sons and daughters had made Him so angry.

Truly He loves His people; all Your chosen ones are in Your hand. They gathered at Your feet and received Your words.