Hear, Israel

“At Horeb the Lord our God made a covenant with us. The Lord didn’t make this covenant with our ancestors. He made it with us, all of us who are here alive today.

“The Lord spoke with you face to face on the mountain, out of the middle of the fire. I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to tell you what the Lord said, because you were afraid of the fire and didn’t go up onto the mountain. These were his words: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.

“‘You shall have no other gods before me.

“‘You shall not make yourself a carved idol, an image of anything in the sky above, or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Don’t bow down to them or serve them. I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I bring the sin of the fathers on the children, and on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me. And I show loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“‘You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will count anyone who misuses his name as guilty.

“‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. You are to work six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath for the Lord your God. Don’t do any work on it: not you, or your son or your daughter, or your servants, men or women, or your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, or any stranger staying with you, so that your servants, men and women, may rest as well as you.

“‘Remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. This is why the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

“‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you. Then your life will be long, and it will go well with you in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

“‘You shall not murder.

“‘You shall not commit adultery.

“‘You shall not steal.

“‘You shall not lie as a witness against your neighbor.

“‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his servants, men or women, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’”

“When you heard the voice out of the middle of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, the leaders of all your tribes and your elders came to me. You said, ‘Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the middle of the fire. Today we have seen God speak with a man, and the man is still alive.

“‘So why should we die? This great fire will burn us up. If we hear the Lord our God speak any more, we will die. Who among all people has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as we have, and lived? You go near and hear everything the Lord our God says. Then tell us all he tells you, and we will hear it and do it.’

“The Lord heard what you said to me, and he told me, ‘I have heard what these people have said to you. Everything they have said is good. Oh, if only their hearts were like this, so that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always! Then it would go well with them and with their children forever.

“‘Go and tell them, “Go back to your tents.” But you, stand here by me. I will tell you all the commandments, the laws and the rules that you are to teach them, so they will do them in the land I am giving them to take as their own.’

“So be careful to do just as the Lord your God has commanded you. Don’t turn away to the right or to the left. Walk in all the ways the Lord your God has commanded you. Then you will live, it will go well with you, and you will have a long life in the land you are going to take.”

“So hear, Israel, and be careful to do it. Then it will go well with you, and there will be very many of you in a land flowing with milk and honey. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you this.

“Hear, Israel: the Lord is our God. The Lord is one.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

“These words, which I am giving you today, shall be on your heart. Teach them carefully to your children, and talk of them when you sit in your home and as you walk along the road, when you go to bed and when you get up.

“Tie them on your hand as a sign, and let them be a band on your forehead, between your eyes. Write them on the doorposts of your home and on your gates.”

“Fear the Lord your God. Serve him, and swear your oaths by his name. Don’t follow other gods, the gods of the peoples who live around you, because the Lord your God, here among you, is a jealous God. If you do, the Lord your God may become angry with you and wipe you off the face of the earth.

“Don’t test the Lord your God the way you tested him at Massah. Be careful to keep these commandments of the Lord your God. Do what is right and good in the Lord’s eyes. Then it will go well with you, and you will go in and take the good land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. He will drive out all your enemies ahead of you, as he said he would.

“In time to come, your son may ask you, ‘The Lord our God has commanded you to keep these instructions, laws and rules. What do they mean?’ Then tell your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He showed great and fearsome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and against all his household, right before our eyes. He brought us out from there so that he could bring us into the land he swore to our ancestors, and give it to us.

“‘The Lord commanded us to keep all these laws and to fear the Lord our God. This is always for our good, so that he will keep us alive, as we are today. It will be righteousness to us if we are careful to do all these commandments in the presence of the Lord our God, as he commanded us.’”

“Don’t marry them,” Moses said, speaking for the Lord. “Don’t give your daughter to one of their sons, or take one of their daughters for your son. That would turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. Then the Lord would become angry with you, and he would quickly destroy you.

“But deal with them like this: break down their altars, smash their stone pillars to pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their carved idols with fire.

“You are a people who are holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the earth, he has chosen you to be his very own.

“The Lord didn’t give you his love or choose you because there were more of you than of any other people. You were the fewest of all peoples. But the Lord loves you, and he wants to keep the oath he swore to your ancestors. That is why he has brought you out with a mighty hand and set you free from the land where you were slaves, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

“So know that the Lord your God himself is God, the faithful God. He keeps his covenant and his loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments. But he pays back those who hate him, to their face, and destroys them. He won’t be slow to deal with anyone who hates him. He will pay that person back to his face.

“So keep these commandments, and do them. When you listen to these rules, and keep them and do them, the Lord your God will keep his covenant with you, and the loving kindness he promised your ancestors with an oath. He will love you, bless you and make your numbers grow. He will bless your children and the crops of your ground, your grain, your new wine and your oil, and the young of your cattle and of your flock, in the land he swore to your ancestors he would give you.

“You will be blessed more than all peoples. No man or woman among you will be without children, and none of your animals either. The Lord will take all sickness away from you. He won’t put on you any of the terrible diseases of Egypt that you know about. He will put them on all those who hate you instead.

“You are to destroy all the peoples the Lord your God hands over to you. Don’t pity them. Don’t serve their gods, because that would be a trap for you.

“You may say to yourself, ‘These nations outnumber me. How can I drive them out?’ Don’t be afraid of them. Instead, remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: the great trials you saw with your own eyes, the signs, the wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm he used to bring you out. He will do the same to all the peoples you are afraid of.

“The Lord your God will also send the hornet among them, until those who are left and are hiding from you have died. Don’t be scared of them, because the Lord your God is among you, a great and fearsome God.

“The Lord your God will drive out those nations ahead of you little by little. You may not finish them off all at once, or the wild animals may grow too many for you. But he will hand them over to you, and he will throw them into a great confusion until they are destroyed. He will also put their kings in your hands, and you will make their names disappear from the earth. No one will be able to stand up to you until you have destroyed them.

“Burn the carved idols of their gods in the fire. Don’t covet the silver or the gold on them, or take it for yourself. It could trap you, because the Lord your God hates it. Don’t bring a hateful thing like that into your house, or you will become a devoted thing just like it. Hate it completely, and be disgusted by it, because it is a devoted thing.”

“He humbled you and let you go hungry, and he fed you with manna, which you had never known, and your ancestors had never known either. He did it to teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the Lord’s mouth.

“In all these forty years, your clothes never wore out on you, and your feet never swelled. Take it to heart that the Lord your God disciplines you, just as a man disciplines his son.

“So keep the commandments of the Lord your God. Walk in his ways and fear him. The Lord your God is leading you into a good land. It is a land of streams and springs, with water under the ground that flows out into the valleys and the hills. It is a land of wheat and barley, vines, fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey. There you will eat bread and never run short. You will lack nothing there. Its stones are iron, and you can dig copper out of its hills.

“When you have eaten and are full, praise the Lord your God for giving you the good land.

“Take care that you don’t forget the Lord your God by not keeping these commandments. Be careful when you have eaten and are full, and have built fine houses and live in them. Be careful when your herds and your flocks grow, and your silver and gold grow, and everything you have grows. Then your heart may become proud, and you may forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves.

“He is the one who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with poisonous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water. He poured out water for you from the flint rock. In the wilderness he fed you with manna, food your ancestors had never known. He did it to humble you and to test you, so that in the end things would go well for you.

“Be careful, too, that you don’t say to yourself, ‘I made myself rich by my own power and the strength of my own hands.’ Remember the Lord your God, because he is the one who gives you the strength to get rich. He does it to keep the covenant he swore to your ancestors, as you can see today.

“If you do forget the Lord your God, and chase after other gods to serve them and worship them, I warn you today that you will surely perish. You will perish just like the nations the Lord is destroying ahead of you, because you would not listen to the Lord your God.”

“So know today that it is the Lord your God who crosses over ahead of you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them, and he will bring them down in front of you. Then you will drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has told you.

“After the Lord your God has pushed them out ahead of you, don’t say to yourself, ‘The Lord has brought me in to take this land because I am righteous.’ You aren’t going in to take their land because you are righteous or because your heart is right. The Lord your God is driving these nations out ahead of you because they are wicked, and to keep the oath he made to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

“So understand this: the Lord your God isn’t giving you this good land to take because you are righteous. You are a stubborn people. Remember this, and don’t ever forget it: in the wilderness you made the Lord your God angry. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebelling against the Lord.

“At Horeb, too, you made the Lord angry, and the Lord was angry enough with you to destroy you. I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, and I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I didn’t eat bread or drink water. The Lord handed me the two stone tablets written with God’s finger. On them were all the words the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain, out of the middle of the fire, on the day you were all gathered there.

“When the forty days and nights were over and the Lord had given me the tablets, he said to me, ‘Get up! Go down from here quickly. Your people, the ones you brought out of Egypt, have done a wicked thing. They have been quick to turn away from the way I commanded them. They have made themselves an idol of cast metal!’

“The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen these people. They are a stubborn people. Leave me alone, so that I can destroy them and wipe out their name from the earth. And I will make you a nation mightier and greater than they are.’

“So I turned and came down from the mountain, while the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. I looked, and there it was: you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made yourselves a calf of cast metal. You had quickly turned away from the way the Lord had commanded you. I took hold of the two tablets, threw them down from my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.

“Then I lay face down in the Lord’s presence for forty days and forty nights, as I had the first time. I didn’t eat bread or drink water. It was because of all the sin you had done. You had done what was evil in the Lord’s eyes and made him angry. I was afraid of the Lord’s anger and his hot fury against you, because he was angry enough to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time too.

“The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, and at that time I prayed for Aaron too. I took the calf you had made, the thing you had sinned with, and burned it with fire. I crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw the dust into the stream that ran down the mountain.

“At Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you made the Lord angry. And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea and said, ‘Go up and take the land I have given you,’ you rebelled against what the Lord your God commanded. You didn’t believe him or listen to him. You have been rebelling against the Lord from the day I knew you.

“So for those forty days and nights I lay face down before the Lord. He had said he would destroy you. I prayed, ‘Lord God, don’t destroy your people, the ones who belong to you. By your greatness you set them free and brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

“‘Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Don’t look at how stubborn these people are, or at their wickedness or their sin. Otherwise the people of the land you brought us out of may say, “The Lord couldn’t bring them into the land he promised them, and he hated them. That’s why he brought them out here, to kill them in the wilderness.” Yet they are your own people, the ones who belong to you. You brought them out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’”

“So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut two stone tablets like the first, and I went up onto the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. The Lord wrote on the tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments that he spoke to you on the mountain, out of the middle of the fire, on the day you were all gathered there. He gave them to me. I turned and came down from the mountain, and I put the tablets in the ark I had made. They are still there, as the Lord commanded me.

“(The Israelites traveled from Beeroth Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried, and Eleazar his son served as priest in his place. From there they traveled to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of streams.

“At that time the Lord set the tribe of Levi apart to carry the ark of the Lord’s covenant. They were to stand in the Lord’s presence to serve him and to bless people in his name, as they still do to this day. That is why Levi has no share of land along with his brothers. The Lord is his share, just as the Lord your God told him.)

“I stayed on the mountain, as I did the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord listened to me that time too. The Lord would not destroy you. The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and set out on your journey ahead of the people. They will go in and take the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them.’

“Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Just this: to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the Lord’s commandments and laws that I give you today for your own good.

“Look, heaven belongs to the Lord your God, even the highest heaven, and so does the earth with everything in it. Yet the Lord delighted in your ancestors and loved them. He chose you, their offspring after them, out of all peoples, as you see today.

“So circumcise your hearts, and don’t be stubborn any longer, because the Lord your God, he is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty and the fearsome. He doesn’t play favorites or take bribes.

“He makes sure that children without fathers and widows are treated fairly, and he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. So love the foreigner, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

“Fear the Lord your God. Serve him, cling to him, and swear your oaths by his name. He is your praise, and he is your God. He has done these great and fearsome things for you, things your own eyes have seen. Your ancestors were seventy people when they went down into Egypt, and now the Lord your God has made you as many as the stars of the sky.”

“Understand this today: it isn’t your children I am speaking to. They haven’t known or seen the Lord your God’s discipline. They didn’t see his greatness, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm, or the signs and the works he did in the middle of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to all his land. They didn’t see what he did to the army of Egypt, to its horses and its chariots: how he made the water of the Red Sea flood over them as they chased you, and how the Lord destroyed them for good.

“They didn’t see what he did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place. They didn’t see what the Lord did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents and every living thing that followed them, in the middle of all Israel. But your own eyes have seen all the great work the Lord has done.

“So keep all these commandments. Then you will be strong, and you will go in and take the land you are crossing over to take. And you will live a long time in the land the Lord swore he would give to your ancestors and their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.

“The land you are going in to take isn’t like the land of Egypt that you came out of. There you planted your seed and watered it with your foot, like a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing over to take is a land of hills and valleys that drinks in the rain from the sky. The Lord your God cares for this land. His eyes are always on it, from the beginning of the year all the way to the end of the year.

“If you listen carefully to my commandments that I give you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,” Moses said, speaking for the Lord, “I will send the rain on your land at the right time, the early rain and the late rain, so that you can gather in your grain, your new wine and your oil. I will give grass in your fields for your animals, and you will eat and be full.

“Be careful, or your heart may be fooled, and you may turn away to serve other gods and worship them. Then the Lord would become angry with you. He would shut the sky so that no rain falls, and the land would give no crops. You would quickly perish and be gone from the good land the Lord is giving you.”

“Be careful to keep all these commandments I am giving you, and do them. Love the Lord your God and walk in all his ways, and cling to him. If you do, the Lord will drive out all these nations ahead of you, and you will take the land of nations greater and stronger than you. Every place you set foot on will be yours. Your border will run from the wilderness and Lebanon, and from the river, the Euphrates River, to the sea in the west. No man will be able to stand up to you. The Lord your God will put the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land you walk on, as he has told you.

“Look, today I am setting before you a blessing and a curse. You will have the blessing if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am giving you today. You will have the curse if you don’t listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the way I am commanding you today and follow other gods you have not known.

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are going to take, you are to set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. Those mountains are across the Jordan, beyond the road where the sun goes down, in the land of the Canaanites living in the Arabah, near Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh.

“You are about to cross the Jordan to go in and take the land the Lord your God is giving you, and you will take it and live in it. Be careful to obey all the laws and rules I am setting before you today.”