“You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge,
his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. And consider
today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known
or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his
greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, his signs and
his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to
all his land, and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses
and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow
over them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed
them to this day, and what he did to you in the wilderness, until
you came to this place, and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the
sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and
swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every
living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. For
your eyes have seen all the great work of the LORD that he did.
“You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command
you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of
the land that you are going over to possess, and that you may live
long in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give to
them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.
For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not
like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed
your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. But the
land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and
valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that
the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are
always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the
year.
“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you
today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your
heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land
in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may
gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give
grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be
full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and
serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the LORD will
be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that
there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you
will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.
“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and
in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and
they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them
to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your
house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down,
and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your
house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your
children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your
fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I
command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his
ways, and holding fast to him, then the LORD will drive out all
these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater
and mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of your foot
treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness
to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the
western sea. No one shall be able to stand against you. The LORD
your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the
land that you shall tread, as he promised you.
“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the
blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which
I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the
commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way that
I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not
known. And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that you
are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing
on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. Are they not beyond
the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in
the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal,
beside the oak of Moreh? For you are to cross over the Jordan to go
in to take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving
you. And when you possess it and live in it, you shall be careful
to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you
today.
