Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

11 Love the Lord your God, and do what he wants you to do. Always obey his laws, rules, and commands. ² Remember today the discipline you learned from the Lord your God. (⌞I’m not talking⌟ to your children. They didn’t see or experience any of this.) You saw and experienced his great power—his mighty hand and powerful arm. ³ You saw the miraculous signs and deeds he did in Egypt to Pharaoh (the king of Egypt) and to his whole country. ⁴ You saw what he did to the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots. He drowned them in the Red Sea when they pursued you. So the Lord destroyed them forever. ⁵ You saw what he did for you in the desert until you came here. ⁶ You also saw what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, from the tribe of Reuben. In the middle of all the Israelites the ground opened up and swallowed them, their families, their tents, and every living creature with them. ⁷ You saw with your own eyes all these spectacular things that the Lord did.

⁸ Obey all the commands I’m giving you today. Then you will have the strength to enter and take possession of the land once you’ve crossed ⌞the Jordan River⌟. ⁹ Then you will also live for a long time in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors and their descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰ The land you’re about to enter and take possession of isn’t like the land you left in Egypt. There you used to plant your seed, and you had to water it like a vegetable garden. ¹¹ The land you’re about to enter is a land with hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky. ¹² It is a land the Lord your God cares about. He watches over it all year long.

¹³ If you faithfully obey the commands that I’m giving you today, love the Lord your God, and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ I will send rain on your land at the right time, both in the fall and in the spring. Then you will gather your own grain, new wine, and olive oil. ¹⁵ I will provide grass in the fields for your animals, and you will be able to eat all you want.

¹⁶ Be careful, or you’ll be tempted to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. ¹⁷ The Lord will become angry with you. He’ll shut the sky so that there’ll be no rain. Then the ground won’t grow any crops, and you’ll quickly disappear from this good land the Lord is giving you.

¹³ In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and in the sight of Christ Jesus, who gave a good testimony in front of Pontius Pilate, ¹⁴ I insist that, until our Lord Jesus Christ appears, you obey this command completely. Then you cannot be blamed for doing anything wrong. ¹⁵ At the right time God will make this known. God is the blessed and only ruler. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. ¹⁶ He is the only one who cannot die. He lives in light that no one can come near. No one has seen him, nor can they see him. Honor and power belong to him forever! Amen.