Beginning

Not By Bread Alone

8 “You are to take care to do the whole mitzvah that I am commanding you today, so that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that Adonai swore to your fathers. ² You are to remember all the way that Adonai your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness—in order to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His mitzvot or not. ³ He afflicted you and let you hunger, then He fed you manna—which neither you nor your fathers had known—in order to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of Adonai. ⁴ Neither did your clothing wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. ⁵ Now you know in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Adonai your God disciplines you. ⁶ So you are to keep the mitzvot of Adonai your God—to walk in His ways and to fear Him. ⁷ For Adonai your God is bringing you into a good land—a land of wadis with water, of springs and fountains flowing out in the valleys and hills, ⁸ a land of wheat and barley, vines, figs and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, ⁹ a land where you will eat bread with no poverty, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. ¹⁰ So you will eat and be full, and you will bless Adonai your God for the good land He has given you.

¹¹ “Take care that you do not forget Adonai your God by not keeping His mitzvot, ordinances and statutes that I am commanding you today. ¹² Otherwise, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and lived in them, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks multiply, and silver and gold multiplies for you and all that is yours multiplies, ¹⁴ then your heart will be haughty and you will forget Adonai your God. He brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. ¹⁵ He led you through the great and terrible wilderness—fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water. He brought forth water for you from the flinty rock. ¹⁶ He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, in order to afflict you and test you, to do you good in the end. ¹⁷ You may say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand has made me this wealth.’ ¹⁸ Rather you are to remember Adonai your God, for it is He who gives you power to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant that He swore to your fathers—as it is this day.

¹⁹ “Now if you do forget Adonai your God, and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you will certainly perish. ²⁰ Like the nations Adonai makes perish before you, so you will perish, since you would not listen to the voice of Adonai your God.

Who Brings Down Giants?

9 “Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself—cities great and fortified up to the heavens. ² The people are great and tall, sons of the Anakim. You know them, and you yourselves have heard, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?” ³ But you will know today that Adonai your God is the One who is crossing over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them, and He will bring them down before you, so that you may drive them out and make them perish quickly, as Adonai has promised you.

⁴ “After Adonai your God has driven them out from before you, do not say in your heart, ‘It is because of my righteousness that Adonai has brought me in to possess this land.’ It is because of the wickedness of these nations that Adonai is driving them out from before you. ⁵ It is not by your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to possess their land. Rather, because of the wickedness of these nations, Adonai your God is driving them out from before you, and in order to keep the word Adonai swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ⁶ So you should understand that it is not because of your righteousness that Adonai your God is giving you this good land to possess—for you are a stiff-necked people.

What Happened to the Tablets?

⁷ “Remember, never forget, how you provoked Adonai your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Adonai. ⁸ At Horeb you provoked Adonai to wrath, and Adonai was angry with you—enough to destroy you. ⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that Adonai cut with you, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights; I did not eat bread or drink water. ¹⁰ Adonai gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God. Moreover, on them were all the words that Adonai had spoken with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire, on the day of the assembly.

¹¹ “Now at the end of 40 days and 40 nights, Adonai gave me the two tablets of stone—the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Adonai said to me, ‘Get up! Go quickly down from here, for your people whom you brought out from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them; they have made a molten image for themselves.’ ¹³ Furthermore Adonai spoke to me saying, ‘I have seen this people, and it is indeed a stiff-necked people. ¹⁴ Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they.’

¹⁵ “So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire. Now the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ When I looked, you had indeed sinned against Adonai your God—you had made yourselves a metal calf. So quickly you had turned aside from the way Adonai had commanded you! ¹⁷ So I took hold of the two tablets, threw them out of my two hands, and smashed them before your eyes.

¹⁸ “Then I fell down before Adonai like the first time, for 40 days and 40 nights. I did not eat bread or drink water—because of all your sin that you committed, doing evil in Adonai’s sight, provoking Him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the fierce wrath and fury which Adonai bore toward you—to destroy you.^[a] But Adonai listened to me that time also. ²⁰ Adonai was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. ²¹ I took your sin—the calf you had made—and burned it in the fire. I crushed it, grinding it up so well that it was as fine as dust, and I threw its dust into the wadi flowing down from the mountain.

²² “Again at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked Adonai to wrath. ²³ When Adonai sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of Adonai your God and didn’t believe Him or listen to His voice. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against Adonai from the day that I knew you.

²⁵ “So I threw myself down before Adonai those 40 days and 40 nights, because Adonai had said He would destroy you. ²⁶ I prayed to Adonai and said, ‘O Lord, Adonai, do not destroy Your people—Your inheritance that You have redeemed through Your greatness and brought out from Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people or to their wickedness or their sin. ²⁸ Otherwise the land from which You brought us out may say, “Because Adonai was not able to bring them into the land that He spoke of to them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.” ²⁹ Yet they are Your people—Your inheritance that You brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm.’

Two New Tablets

10 “At that time Adonai said to me, ‘Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones and come up to Me on the mountain. Make yourself an ark of wood. ² I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you smashed, and you are to put them in the ark.’

³ “So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴ Like the first inscription, Adonai wrote on the tablets the Ten Words He had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly, then gave them to me. ⁵ Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made—and there they are, just as Adonai commanded me.

⁶ “(Bnei-Yisrael traveled from the wells of the sons of Jaakan to Moserah—there Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar served as kohen in his place. ⁷ From there they journeyed to Gudgod, and from Gudgod to Jotbah—a land of wadis flowing with water. ⁸ At that time Adonai set the tribe of Levi apart to carry the Ark of the Covenant of Adonai, to stand before Adonai to serve Him and to pronounce blessings in His Name—as is the case to this day. ⁹ Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers—Adonai is his inheritance, just as Adonai your God had promised about him.)

¹⁰ “I stayed on the mountain like the first time—40 days and 40 nights. Adonai listened to me that time also and was not willing to destroy you. ¹¹ Adonai said to me, ‘Rise up, go, journey ahead of the people so that they may go in and possess the land that I swore to their fathers to give to them.’

¹² “So now, O Israel, what does Adonai your God require of you, but to fear Adonai your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ to keep the mitzvot of Adonai and His statutes that I am commanding you today, for your own good? ¹⁴ Behold, to Adonai your God belong the heavens and the highest of heavens, the earth and all that is in it. ¹⁵ Only on your fathers did Adonai set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them—you—from all the peoples, as is the case this day.

Circumcise Your Hearts

¹⁶ “Circumcise the foreskin of your heart therefore, and do not be stiff-necked anymore. ¹⁷ For Adonai your God is God of gods and Lord of lords^[b]—the great, mighty and awesome God, who does not show partiality or take a bribe. ¹⁸ He enacts justice for the orphan and widow, and loves the outsider, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Therefore love the outsider, for you were outsiders in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ Adonai your God you will fear—Him will you serve. To Him will you cling, and by His Name will you swear. ²¹ He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your eyes have seen. ²² Your fathers went down to Egypt with 70 persons, and now Adonai your God has made you like the stars of the heavens in number.