Beginning

Remember the Lord Your God

8 You must carefully keep all the commandments that I am commanding you today, so that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers. ² You must remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. ³ He humbled you and let you suffer hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell these forty years. ⁵ You must also consider in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

⁶ Therefore you must keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, ⁸ a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, ⁹ a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper.

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. ¹¹ Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I am commanding you today. ¹² Otherwise, when you have eaten and are full and have built and occupied good houses, ¹³ and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, ¹⁴ then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, ¹⁵ who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, where there were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water, who brought forth for you water out of the rock of flint, ¹⁶ who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might prove you, to do good for you in the end. ¹⁷ Otherwise, you may say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” ¹⁸ But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to get wealth, so that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is today.

¹⁹ If you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, then I testify against you today that you will surely perish. ²⁰ Just like the nations which the Lord will destroy before you, so shall you perish because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

Not Because of Righteousness

9 Hear, O Israel! You are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than you, great cities fortified up to heaven, ² a great and tall people, the children of the Anakites, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, “Who can stand before the children of Anak?” ³ Understand therefore today that the Lord your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He shall destroy them and shall bring them down before you, so that you drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has spoken to you.

⁴ Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, “On account of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,” but it is because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is driving them out before you. ⁵ It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you enter to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess on account of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.

The Golden Calf

⁷ Remember, and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸ Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to destroy you. ⁹ When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water. ¹⁰ The Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God, and on them was written all the words which the Lord spoke to you at the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.

¹¹ At the end of forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Then the Lord said to me, “Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They are quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molded image for themselves.”

¹³ Furthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying, “I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stubborn people. ¹⁴ Let Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”

¹⁵ So I returned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ I looked, and indeed, you had sinned against the Lord your God and had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned aside out of the way which the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷ I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.

¹⁸ I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all your sins which you committed, doing what was wicked in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also. ²⁰ The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. ²¹ I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, and ground it very small until it was as small as dust. Then I threw the dust into the brook that descended down from the mountain.

²² Also at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath.

²³ Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him or listen to His voice. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.

²⁵ So I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights; I fell down because the Lord had said He would destroy you. ²⁶ I prayed therefore to the Lord, and said, “O Lord God, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, which You have redeemed through Your greatness, which You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at the stubbornness of this people or at their wickedness or their sin. ²⁸ Otherwise, the land from which You brought us may say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them and because He hated them, He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.’ ²⁹ Yet they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your stretched-out arm.”

The Second Pair of Tablets

10 At that time the Lord said to me, “Cut out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first and come up to Me onto the mountain and make an ark of wood for yourself. ² I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.”

³ So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone just like the first and went up onto the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴ He wrote on the tablets just like the first writing, the Ten Commandments which the Lord spoke to you at the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly, and the Lord gave them to me. ⁵ I turned around and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I had made, and there they are, just as the Lord commanded me.

⁶ (The children of Israel set out from Beeroth of the sons of Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar ministered in the priest’s office in his place. ⁷ From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of waters. ⁸ At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to Him, and to bless in His name, to this day. ⁹ Therefore, Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God promised him.)

¹⁰ As for me, I stayed on the mountain like the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord listened to me at that time also. The Lord was not willing to destroy you. ¹¹ The Lord said to me, “Arise, take your journey before the people, so that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to give to their fathers.”

The Essence of the Law

¹² Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?

¹⁴ Indeed, heaven and the highest heavens belong to the 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 descendants after them, even you above all people, as it is today. ¹⁶ Therefore, circumcise your heart, and do not be stubborn anymore. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the fearsome God who is unbiased and takes no bribe. ¹⁸ He executes the judgment of the orphan and the widow and loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Therefore, love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ You must fear the Lord your God. You must serve Him and cling to Him, and swear by His name. ²¹ He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and fearsome things which your eyes have seen. ²² Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy people, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.