“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the
LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in
the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may
fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, by
keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you,
all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear
therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well
with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God
of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and
honey.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall
love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your might. And these words that I command you today
shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your
children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and
when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as
frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts
of your house and on your gates.
“And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he
swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give
you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses
full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that
you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not
plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget
the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of slavery. It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you
shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after
other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—for the LORD
your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the LORD
your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the
face of the earth.
“You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested
him at Massah. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the
LORD your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has
commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight
of the LORD, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in
and take possession of the good land that the LORD swore to give to
your fathers by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as
the LORD has promised.
“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of
the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our
God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were
Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt
with a mighty hand. And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great
and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his
household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that
he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to
our fathers. And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to
fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve
us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us,
if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our
God, as he has commanded us.’
