Deuteronomy 6–8

Chapter 6

¹And these are the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Jehovah your God commanded to teach you, that ye may do them in the land whereunto ye pass over to possess it, ²that thou mayest fear Jehovah thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. ³And thou shalt hear, Israel, and take heed to do them; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase greatly, as Jehovah the God of thy fathers hath said unto thee, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁴Hear, Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; ⁵and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. ⁶And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; ⁷and thou shalt impress them on thy sons, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou goest on the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. ⁸And thou shalt bind them for a sign on thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. ⁹And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates. ¹⁰And it shall be, when Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into the land which he swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee: great and good cities which thou buildedst not, ¹¹and houses full of everything good which thou filledst not, and wells digged which thou diggedst not, vineyards and oliveyards which thou plantedst not, and thou shalt have eaten and shalt be full; ¹²then beware lest thou forget Jehovah who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. ¹³Thou shalt fear Jehovah thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. ¹⁴Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples that are round about you; ¹⁵for Jehovah thy God is a jealous •God in thy midst; lest the anger of Jehovah thy God be kindled against thee, and he destroy thee from the face of the earth. ¹⁶Ye shall not tempt Jehovah your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.

¹⁷Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of Jehovah your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. ¹⁸And thou shalt do what is right and good in the sight of Jehovah, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest enter in and possess the good land which Jehovah swore unto thy fathers, ¹⁹thrusting out all thine enemies from before thee, as Jehovah hath spoken. ²⁰When thy son shall ask thee in time to come, saying, What are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which Jehovah our God hath commanded you? ²¹then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a powerful hand; ²²and Jehovah shewed signs and wonders, great and grievous, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes; ²³and he brought us out thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore unto our fathers. ²⁴And Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our God, for our good continually, that he might preserve us alive, as it is this day. ²⁵And it shall be our righteousness if we take heed to do all these commandments before Jehovah our God, as he hath commanded us.

Chapter 7

¹When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations from before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou, ²and when Jehovah thy God shall give them up before thee and thou shalt smite them, then shalt thou utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them. ³And thou shalt make no marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor take his daughter for thy son; ⁴for he will turn away thy son from following me, and they will serve other gods, and the anger of Jehovah will be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly. ⁵But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire. ⁶For a holy people art thou unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him a people for a possession, above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth. ⁷Not because ye were more in number than all the peoples, hath Jehovah been attached to you and chosen you, for ye are the fewest of all the peoples; ⁸but because Jehovah loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out with a powerful hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹And thou shalt know that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful •God, who keepeth covenant and mercy to a thousand generations with them that love him and keep his commandments; ¹⁰and repayeth them that hate him each to his face, to cause them to perish: he delayeth not with him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. ¹¹And thou shalt keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them.

¹²And it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Jehovah thy God will keep with thee the covenant and the mercy which he swore unto thy fathers; ¹³and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee, and will bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, thy corn and thy new wine, and thine oil, the offspring of thy kine, and the increase of thy sheep, in the land which he swore unto thy fathers to give thee. ¹⁴Thou shalt be blessed above all the peoples; there shall not be male or female barren with thee, or with thy cattle; ¹⁵and Jehovah will take away from thee all sickness, and none of the evil infirmities of Egypt, which thou knowest, will he put upon thee; but he will lay them upon all them that hate thee. ¹⁶And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God will give up unto thee; thine eye shall not spare them, and thou shalt not serve their gods; for that would be a snare unto thee. ¹⁷If thou shouldest say in thy heart, These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them? ¹⁸fear them not; remember well what Jehovah thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all the Egyptians; ¹⁹the great trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the powerful hand, and the stretched-out arm, whereby Jehovah thy God brought thee out: so will Jehovah thy God do unto all the peoples whom thou fearest. ²⁰Moreover, Jehovah thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and they that hide themselves from thee, are destroyed. ²¹Thou shalt not be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God is in thy midst, a •God great and terrible. ²²And Jehovah thy God will cast out those nations from before thee by little and little; thou shalt not be able to make an end of them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. ²³But Jehovah thy God will give them up before thee, and will confound them with great consternation, until they are destroyed. ²⁴And he will give their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt put out their name from under the heavens; no man shall stand before thee, until thou hast destroyed them. ²⁵The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire; thou shalt not covet the silver and gold that is on them and take it unto thee, lest thou be ensnared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy God. ²⁶And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.

Chapter 8

¹Every commandment which I command thee this day shall ye take heed to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and enter in and possess the land which Jehovah swore unto your fathers. ²And thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or not. ³And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with the manna, which thou hadst not known, and which thy fathers knew not; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by everything that goeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live. ⁴Thy clothing grew not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years. ⁵And know in thy heart that, as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth thee; ⁶and thou shalt keep the commandments of Jehovah thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. ⁷For Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of water-brooks, of springs, and of deep waters, that gush forth in the valleys and hills; ⁸a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey; ⁹a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, where thou shalt lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose mountains thou wilt dig copper.

¹⁰And thou shalt eat and be filled, and shalt bless Jehovah thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. ¹¹Beware that thou forget not Jehovah thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes, which I command thee this day; ¹²lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built and inhabited fine houses, ¹³and thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, ¹⁴then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget Jehovah thy God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; ¹⁵who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness, a…