Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

WAW

Love the Lord your God!

6 These are the commands, rules and laws that the Lord your God gave to me. He told me to teach them to you. You must obey them when you go across the Jordan River to live in that land. ² You must respect the Lord your God with fear. You must obey his rules and his commands that I am teaching you. You, your children and your grandchildren must obey them all through your lives. If you do that, you will enjoy a long life.

³ Listen, Israelites! Be careful to obey God's rules. If you do that, everything will be well for you. You will have many children. You will live in a land where there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised that this will happen.

⁴ Listen, Israelites! The Lord alone is our God. There is no other true God. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your mind and with all your strength. Love him with all that you are. ⁶ Always think about these commands that I am giving you today. ⁷ Teach them to your children at all times. Talk about them when you sit together at home. Talk about them as you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as signs on your arms and on your heads, so that you remember them. ⁹ Write them on the wood beside the doors of your houses and on your gates.

²⁰ One day, your children may say to you, ‘Please tell us about the rules and laws that the Lord our God commanded us to obey.’

²¹ Then you must tell them, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. But the Lord used his great power to rescue us. ²² We saw him do great and powerful miracles that brought trouble to the Egyptians, and to Pharaoh himself and his family. ²³ The Lord rescued us from Egypt so that he could give us another land to live in. That is the land that he promised to our ancestors. ²⁴ The Lord commanded us to obey all these rules and to respect him with fear. If we do that, we will always live happily and the Lord will keep us safe, as he has done until now. ²⁵ We must be careful to obey all the commands of the Lord our God. If we do what he has told us, he will be pleased with us as people who do what is right.’

⁸ But the message of God's kingdom is this: ‘Love other people as much as you love yourself.’ That is what the Bible says. If you really do that, you do well. ⁹ But if you are kind to some people and you are not kind to others, then you are doing a bad thing. God's Law shows that you are wrong. ¹⁰ Even if you fail to obey only one rule in God's Law, it means that you are guilty. It is the same as if you fail to obey all God's Law. ¹¹ For example, God has said in his Law, ‘You must not have sex with anyone who is not your husband or your wife.’ But God has also said, ‘Do not kill another person.’ Perhaps you do not have sex in a wrong way like that. But if you then murder someone, God's Law shows that you are still wrong.

¹² Remember that God will judge you one day. When he does that, he will use a law which makes us free. So remember this in everything that you say and in everything that you do. ¹³ God will not forgive anyone who has not forgiven other people. But God is kind! He judges us, but even more than that, he forgives us!