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Renewing the Covenant
29 These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.[a] 2 Moses summoned all Israel and spoke to them as follows:
You have seen everything that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to his whole land: 3 the great trials that your eyes saw, those great signs and wonders. 4 Yet the Lord to this very day has not given you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.
5 “I led you through the wilderness for forty years. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did the sandals on your feet. 6 You did not eat bread, and you did not drink wine and beer. I did all this so you would know that I am the Lord your God.”
7 When you came to this place, and Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to meet us in battle, we struck them down. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.
9 Therefore you are to keep the words of this covenant and carry them out so that you may succeed in all that you do.
10 You are standing today before the Lord your God, all of you—your tribal heads, your elders, your officers, and men of every rank in Israel, 11 your children, your wives, and the aliens who reside in your camp, whether as wood cutters or water carriers. 12 You are standing here so that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, which is sealed by the oath that the Lord your God is making with you today, 13 in order to establish you today as his people and himself as your God, just as he promised you and just as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
14 Today I am not making this covenant and its oath only with you, 15 but also with everyone who is standing here with us before the Lord our God, and also with those who are not here with us today.
16 You yourselves know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we passed through the midst of the various nations we encountered. 17 You saw their detestable things and their filthy idols of wood and stone and silver and gold that were with them.
18 Make sure that there is not among you a man, a woman, a family, or a tribe whose heart today is turning away from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Make sure that there is among you no root that is producing a poison plant and bitter wormwood. 19 When such a person hears the words of this oath, he might congratulate himself in his heart and say, “I’ll be safe, even though I’m proceeding in my stubborn way.” By acting this way he will destroy the watered ground as well as the parched.
20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger and jealousy of the Lord will smoke against that man, and all the curses written in this document will come to rest on him, and the Lord will wipe away his name from under the heavens. 21 The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, in keeping with all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law.
22 And when the next generation, your children who will come after your time, and the foreigner who will come from a distant land have seen the plagues on that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord struck it, they will say, 23 “Sulfur and salt, conflagration for all of its land! No planting, no sprouting, no maturing crop in it! It will be like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his fierce anger!”
24 Then all the nations will say, “Why did the Lord do something like that to this land? What is the reason for this burning, this fierce anger?”
25 Then they will say, “It is because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26 They went and served other gods and bowed down to them, gods that they had not known and that he had not allotted to them. 27 So the anger of the Lord burned against that land to bring on it the entire curse written in this book. 28 The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, in rage, and in his great wrath, and he hurled them into another land, as it is to this day.”
29 The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, so that we carry out all the words of this law.
Prosperity Will Follow Repentance
30 When all these things come upon you, both the blessing and the curse that I have given you, and you take them to heart while you are among all the nations to which the Lord your God has banished you, 2 and when you return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice with all your heart and soul, in every way that I am commanding you today, you and your children, 3 then the Lord your God will restore you from your captivity. He will have compassion on you, and he will gather you together again out of all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. 4 Even if your banished people are at the end of the heavens, the Lord your God will gather you together there and take you away from there. 5 The Lord your God will bring you back to the land that your fathers possessed, and then you will possess it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.
6 The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with the result that you will live.
7 Then the Lord your God will place all these curses on your enemies and on those who hated you and persecuted you. 8 Once again you will listen to the voice of the Lord, and you will carry out all of his commands that I am giving you today.
9 The Lord your God will cause you to be overflowing with good things from all the work of your hands, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your animals, and in the fruit of your soil. Once again he will rejoice over your prosperity, just as he rejoiced over your fathers, 10 when you obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes written in this Book of the Law, when you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
11 Certainly, this commandment that I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, and it is not far away. 12 It is not up in the heavens, so that you have to say, “Which one of us will go up to the heavens and get it for us so we can listen to it and carry it out?” 13 It is not across the sea, so that you have to say, “Which one of us will cross over to the other side of the sea and get it for us so we can listen to it and carry it out?” 14 Instead, the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so you can obey it.
Life or Death
15 See now, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. 16 This is what I am commanding you today: Love the Lord your God, walk in his ways, and keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and increase in number, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are going to possess.
17 But if your heart turns away, and you do not listen, and you are lured away, and you bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 then I declare to you today that you will most certainly perish. You will not live a long life on the land that you are about to enter and possess by crossing over the Jordan.
19 I call the heavens and the earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live 20 by loving the Lord your God, by listening to his voice, and by clinging to him, because that means life for you, and you will live a long life on your land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Woes and Warnings
37 After Jesus spoke, a Pharisee invited him to have a meal with him. He went in and reclined at the table. 38 When the Pharisee saw this, he was amazed that he did not first wash[a] before the meal. 39 But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 Fools! Didn’t the one who made the outside also make the inside? 41 But give those things that are inside as a gift to the poor, and see, everything will be clean for you. 42 But woe to you Pharisees, because you give a tenth of mint and rue and every herb, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have done these things without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the best seat in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.”
45 One of the legal experts answered him, “Teacher, by saying these things you are insulting us too.”
46 But Jesus said, “Woe to you legal experts too, because you load people down with burdens too difficult to carry, and you yourselves do not touch these burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you because you build monuments for the prophets, but your fathers killed them. 48 So you are witnesses and agree with what your fathers did, because they killed them, and you build their monuments. 49 For this reason the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles. Some of them they will kill and persecute, 50 so that this generation may be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed from the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary.’ Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52 Woe to you legal experts, because you took away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were trying to enter.”
53 When he went away from there, the experts in the law and the Pharisees began to oppose him fiercely and to question him closely about many things. 54 They were plotting against him to trap him in something he said.[b]
Warning Against Hypocrisy
12 Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands gathered together so that they were trampling on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3 So then, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
Fear God, Not People
4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that are not able to do any more. 5 But I will show you the one you should fear. Fear him who, after he has killed the body, has authority to throw it into hell.[c] Yes, I tell you, fear him!
6 “Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins?[d] And not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. 7 Why, even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So stop being afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.
Psalm 78
How Often They Rebelled
Heading
A maskil by Asaph.
A Solemn Call to Hear
1 Give ear, O my people, to my instruction.
Turn your ear to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth to share a lesson.
I will speak about puzzling problems from long ago,
3 things we have heard and known,
things our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their descendants.
We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
his power, and the wonders that he has done.
5 He set up testimony for Jacob.
In Israel he established the law.
He commanded our fathers to make it known to their children.
6 Then the next generation would know it,
even the children not yet born.
They would rise up and tell their children.
7 Then they would put their confidence in God,
and they would not forget the deeds of God,
but they would keep his commands.
8 Then they would not be like their fathers,
a stubborn, rebellious generation,
a generation that did not keep their hearts steadfast,
whose spirits were not faithful to God.
The Rebellion
9 The tribe of Ephraim, equipped and armed with bows,
deserted on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep God’s covenant, and they refused to walk in his law.
11 They forgot his deeds, the wonders he had shown to them.
God’s Goodness in the Wilderness
12 In the presence of their fathers he had performed a wonder,
in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
13 He split the sea and let them cross through it.
He made the water stand like a wall.
14 He led them with the cloud by day
and all through the night with light from the fire.
15 He split the rocks in the wilderness,
and he let them drink water as plentiful as the deep sea.
16 He brought streams out of the rocky cliff.
He made water flow down like rivers.
Israel’s Rebellion in the Wilderness
17 But they continued to sin against him even more,
by rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18 They tested God in their hearts by demanding food for their cravings.
19 Then they spoke against God.
They said, “Is God able to set a table in the wilderness?
20 Sure, he struck the rock and water flowed out,
and stream beds overflowed,
but can he really give us bread?
Can he really supply meat for his people?”
God’s Judgment in the Wilderness
21 Then the Lord heard, and he showed his anger.
Fire broke out against Jacob,
and his anger rose against Israel,
22 because they did not believe in God,
and they did not trust in his salvation.
God’s Mercy in the Wilderness
23 Nevertheless, he gave a command to the skies above,
and he opened the doors of the heavens.
24 He rained down manna for them to eat,
and he gave them the grain of heaven.
25 Each of them ate the bread of the mighty ones.
He sent them all the food they could eat.
26 He sent out the east wind from the heavens,
and he led out the south wind by his power.
27 Then he rained meat down on them like dust,
and flying birds like sand on the seashore.
28 He made the birds fall down inside their camp,
all around their dwellings.
29 Then they ate until they had more than enough,
for he had brought them what they craved.
30 They had not yet turned away from what they craved.
Their food was still in their mouths.
31 Then God’s anger rose up against them.
He killed the strongest among them.
He cut down the best young men of Israel.
19 Truthful lips are established forever,
but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.
20 Deceit lies in the heart of those who plot evil,
but for those who promote peace there will be joy.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.