HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 540
D EU T ERO N O MY 1 1
17 “For the Lord your God is the God of gods
and Lord of lords. He is the great God, the mighty
and awesome God, who shows no partiality and
cannot be bribed. 18 He ensures that orphans
and widows receive justice. He shows love to
the foreigners living among you and gives them
food and clothing. 19 So you, too, must show
love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once
foreigners in the land of Egypt. 20 You must fear
the Lord your God and worship him and cling to
him. Your oaths must be in his name alone. 21 He
alone is your God, the only one who is worthy of
your praise, the one who has done these mighty
miracles that you have seen with your own eyes.
22 When your ancestors went down into Egypt,
there were only seventy of them. But now the
Lord your God has made you as numerous as
the stars in the sky!
11
“You must love the Lord your God and
always obey his requirements, decrees,
regulations, and commands. 2 Keep in mind that
I am not talking now to your children, who have
never experienced the discipline of the Lord
your God or seen his greatness and his strong
hand and powerful arm. 3 They didn’t see the
miraculous signs and wonders he performed in
Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land. 4 They
didn’t see what the Lord did to the armies of
Egypt and to their horses and chariots—how
he drowned them in the Red Sea* as they were
chasing you. He destroyed them, and they have
not recovered to this very day!
5 “Your children didn’t see how the Lord cared
for you in the wilderness until you arrived here.
6 They didn’t see what he did to Dathan and Abiram (the sons of Eliab, a descendant of Reuben)
when the earth opened its mouth in the Israelite camp and swallowed them, along with their
households and tents and every living thing
that belonged to them. 7 But you have seen the
Lord perform all these mighty deeds with your
own eyes!
The Blessings of Obedience
8 “Therefore, be careful to obey every command
I am giving you today, so you may have strength
to go in and take over the land you are about
to enter. 9 If you obey, you will enjoy a long life
in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land
flowing with milk and honey! 10 For the land you
are about to enter and take over is not like the
land of Egypt from which you came, where you
planted your seed and made irrigation ditches
with your foot as in a vegetable garden. 11 Rather,
the land you will soon take over is a land of hills
and valleys with plenty of rain—12 a land that
the Lord your God cares for. He watches over it
through each season of the year!
13 “If you carefully obey the commands I am
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giving you today, and if you love the Lord your
God and serve him with all your heart and soul,
14 then he will send the rains in their proper seasons—the early and late rains—so you can bring
in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive
oil. 15 He will give you lush pastureland for your
livestock, and you yourselves will have all you
want to eat.
16 “But be careful. Don’t let your heart be
deceived so that you turn away from the Lord
and serve and worship other gods. 17 If you do,
the Lord’s anger will burn against you. He will
shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the
ground will fail to produce its harvests. Then
you will quickly die in that good land the Lord
is giving you.
18 “So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to
these words of mine. Tie them to your hands
and wear them on your forehead as reminders.
19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them
when you are at home and when you are on the
road, when you are going to bed and when you
are getting up. 20 Write them on the doorposts of
your house and on your gates, 21 so that as long
as the sky remains above the earth, you and
your children may flourish in the land the Lord
swore to give your ancestors.
22 “Be careful to obey all these commands I
am giving you. Show love to the Lord your God
by walking in his ways and holding tightly to
him. 23 Then the Lord will drive out all the nations ahead of you, though they are much
greater and stronger than you, and you will take
over their land. 24 Wherever you set foot, that
land will be yours. Your frontiers will stretch
from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in
the north, and from the Euphrates River in the
east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.* 25 No
one will be able to stand against you, for the
Lord your God will cause the people to fear and
dread you, as he promised, wherever you go in
the whole land.
26 “Look, today I am giving you the choice
between a blessing and a curse! 27 You will be
blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord
your God that I am giving you today. 28 But you
will be cursed if you reject the commands of the
Lord your God and turn away from him and
worship gods you have not known before.
29 “When the Lord your God brings you into
the land and helps you take possession of it,
you must pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal. 30 (These two
mountains are west of the Jordan River in the
land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan
Valley,* near the town of Gilgal, not far from the
oaks of Moreh.) 31 For you are about to cross the
Jordan River to take over the land the Lord your
God is giving you. When you take that land and
11:4 Hebrew sea of reeds. 11:24 Hebrew to the western sea.
11:30 Hebrew the Arabah.