Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

11 “Therefore, you are to love Adonai your God and always obey his commission, regulations, rulings and mitzvot. ² Today it is you I am addressing — not your children, who haven’t known or experienced the discipline of Adonai your God, his greatness, his strong hand, his outstretched arm, ³ his signs and his actions which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to his entire country. ⁴ They didn’t experience what he did to Egypt’s army, horses and chariots — how Adonai overwhelmed them with the water of the Sea of Suf as they were pursuing you, so that they remain destroyed to this day. ⁵ They didn’t experience what he kept doing for you in the desert until you arrived at this place; ⁶ or what he did to Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eli’av the descendant of Re’uven — how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, tents and every living thing in their company, there in front of all Isra’el. ⁷ But you have seen with your own eyes all these great deeds of Adonai. ⁸ Therefore, you are to keep every mitzvah I am giving you today; so that you will be strong enough to go in and take possession of the land you are crossing over to conquer; ⁹ and so that you will live long in the land Adonai swore to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

(vi) ¹⁰ “For the land you are entering in order to take possession of it isn’t like the land of Egypt. There you would sow your seed and had to use your feet to operate its irrigation system, as in a vegetable garden. ¹¹ But the land you are crossing over to take possession of is a land of hills and valleys, which soaks up water when rain falls from the sky. ¹² It is a land Adonai your God cares for. The eyes of Adonai your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³ “So if you listen carefully to my mitzvot which I am giving you today, to love Adonai your God and serve him with all your heart and all your being; ¹⁴ then, [says Adonai,] ‘I will give your land its rain at the right seasons, including the early fall rains and the late spring rains; so that you can gather in your wheat, new wine and olive oil; ¹⁵ and I will give your fields grass for your livestock; with the result that you will eat and be satisfied.’ ¹⁶ But be careful not to let yourselves be seduced, so that you turn aside, serving other gods and worshipping them. ¹⁷ If you do, the anger of Adonai will blaze up against you. He will shut up the sky, so that there will be no rain. The ground will not yield its produce, and you will quickly pass away from the good land Adonai is giving you.

¹³ I charge you before God, who gives life to all things, and before the Messiah Yeshua, who in his witness to Pontius Pilate gave the same good testimony, ¹⁴ to obey your commission spotlessly and irreproachably until our Lord Yeshua the Messiah appears. ¹⁵ His appearing will be brought about in its own time by the blessed and sole Sovereign, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, ¹⁶ who alone is immortal, who dwells in unapproachable light that no human being has ever seen or can see — to him be honor and eternal power. Amen.