Deuteronomy 8–10

8“All of the commandments^a that I am commanding you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and multiply, and you may go and take possession of the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors.^{b 2}And you shall remember all of the way that Yahweh your God led you during these forty years in the desert in order to humble you and to test you to know what is in your heart, whether you would diligently keep his commandments or not. ³And he humbled you and let you go hungry, and then he fed you with that which you did not know nor did your ancestors^c know, in order to make you know that not by bread alone but by all that goes out^d of the mouth of Yahweh humankind shall live. ⁴Your clothing did not wear out on you,^e and your feet did not swell during these forty years. ⁵And you should know with your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God is disciplining you.^{f 6}So you must keep the commandments of Yahweh your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. ⁷For Yahweh your God is bringing you to a good land with streams of water, springs and underground water, welling up in the valleys^g and in the hills,^{h 8}to a land of wheat and barley and vinesⁱ and fig trees^j and pomegranate trees,^k a land of olive trees,^l olive oil and honey; ⁹to a land where you may eat food in it without scarcity;^m you will not find anything lacking in it, a land where its stones are iron and from its mountains you can mine copper. ¹⁰And you will eat, and you will be satisfied,ⁿ and you will bless Yahweh your God because of the good land that he has given to you.

¹¹“Take care for yourself so that you not forget Yahweh your God by not keeping his commandments and his regulations and his statutes that I am commanding you today,^{o 12}lest when you have eaten and you are satisfied and you have built good houses and you live in them, ¹³and your herds and your flocks have multiplied, and you have accumulated silver and gold,^p and all that you have^q has multiplied, ¹⁴then your heart becomes proud^r and you forget Yahweh your God, the one who brought you out^s from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, ¹⁵the one leading you in the great and terrible desert infested with dangerous^t snakes^u and scorpions^v and parched ground, where there is^w no water, and the one bringing out water for you from flint rock, ¹⁶the one feeding you^x manna in the desert, food that your ancestors^y did not know, in order to humble you and in order to test you so that he could do good to you in the future.^{z 17}And you may think^a in your heart, ‘My strength and the might of my hand acquired this wealth for^b me.’ ¹⁸But you must remember Yahweh your God, for he is the one giving you strength to acquire wealth in order to confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors^c as it is today.^{d 19}And it will happen that if you indeed forget Yahweh your God and you go after other gods and you serve them and you bow down before them, I warn you today that you will surely perish. ²⁰As with the nations that Yahweh is destroying before you,^e so you shall perish because you would not obey the voice of Yahweh your God.

9“Hear, Israel, you are about to cross the Jordan today to go to dispossess nations larger and more numerous than you, great cities fortified with high walls,^{a 2}a great and tall people, the sons of the Anakites, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who could stand before the sons of Anak?’ ³You should know today^b that Yahweh your God is the one crossing ahead of you^c as a devouring fire; he will destroy them, and he will subdue them before you; so you will dispossess them, and you will destroy them quickly, just as^d Yahweh promised^e you.

⁴“You shall not say to yourself^f when Yahweh your God is driving them out^g before you,^h saying,ⁱ ‘Because of my righteousness Yahweh brought me to take possession of this land’; but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh is driving them out before you.^{j 5}It is not because of your righteousness and because of the uprightness of your heart that you are coming to take possession of their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God is driving them before you,^k and in order to confirm the promise^l that Yahweh swore to your ancestors,^m to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶“So you should understand that it is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to take possession of it, because you are a stubborn people. ^{n 7}Remember, do not forget,^o that you provoked Yahweh your God in the desert, and from the day that you went out from the land of Egypt until you came to this place^p you were rebelling against Yahweh.

⁸“And remember at Horeb you provoked Yahweh, and Yahweh became angry enough to destroy you. ⁹When I went up the mountain^q to receive the stone tablets,^r the tablets of the covenant that Yahweh made^s with you, and remained on the mountain forty days^t and forty nights,^u I did not eat food and I did not drink water. ¹⁰And Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them was writing according to all the words that Yahweh spoke with you at the mountain, from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. ¹¹And then^v at the end of forty days^w and forty nights,^x Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. ¹²And Yahweh said to me, ‘Come now, go down quickly from this mountain because your people behave corruptly whom you brought out from Egypt, for they turned quickly from the way that I commanded them to follow; they have made for themselves a cast image.’ ¹³And Yahweh spoke to me, saying,^y ‘I have seen this people, and look! They are a stubborn people.^{z 14}Leave me alone, and let me destroy them, and let me blot out their name from under heaven, and let me make you into a nation mightier and more numerous than they!’

¹⁵“And I turned, and I went down the mountain, as the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶And I looked,^a and indeed you had sinned against Yahweh your God; you had made for yourselves an image of a calf of cast metal; ^b you had turned quickly from the way that Yahweh had commanded for you. ¹⁷And I took hold of the two tablets, and I threw them out of^c my two hands and smashed them before your eyes. ¹⁸And then I lay prostrate before^d Yahweh, as earlier, forty days^e and forty nights;^f I did not eat food and I did not drink water because of all your sins that you committed, by doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh and so provoking him. ¹⁹For I was in dread^g from being in the presence of the anger and the wrath with which Yahweh was angry with you so as to destroy you, but Yahweh listened to me also at that time.^{h 20}And with Aaron Yahweh was angry enoughⁱ to destroy him, and I prayed also for Aaron at that time. ²¹And your sinful thing that you had made, the molten calf, I took and I burned it with fire, and I crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was crushed to dust, and I threw its dust into the stream that flowed down the mountain.^j

²²“And also at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked Yahweh to anger. ²³And when Yahweh sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, saying,^k ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ you rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God, and you did not believe him, and you did not listen to his voice. ²⁴You have been rebellious toward Yahweh from the day I have known you.^l

²⁵“And I lay prostrate before Yahweh through forty days,^m and through forty nightsⁿ I prostrated myself, because Yahweh intended to kill you. ²⁶And I prayed to Yahweh, and I said, ‘Lord Yahweh, you must not destroy your people and your inheritance whom you redeemed in your greatness,^o whom you brought out from Egypt with a strong hand. ²⁷Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; you must not pay attention to^p the stubbornness of this people, to their wickedness and to their sin, ²⁸lest the people of the land from which you brought us out from there say, “Because Yahweh was not able to bring them to the land that he promised^q to them and because of his hatred toward them, he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” ²⁹For they are your people and your inheritance whom you brought with your great power and with your outstretched arm.’

10“At that time Yahweh said to me, ‘Carve for yourself two tablets of stone just as the former ones, and come up the mountain to me, and you shall make for yourself an ark of wood. ²And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you must put them in the ark.’ ³And so I made an ark of acacia wood,^a and I carved two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴And he wrote upon the tablets according to the first writing,^b the ten words that Yahweh spoke to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly, and Yahweh gave them to me. ⁵And I turned, and I came down from the mountain, and I put the tablets in the ark that I had made, and they are there, just as Yahweh commanded me.

⁶“And the Israelites^c journeyed from the wells of Bene-Yaqan to Moserah; there Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar, his son, served as a priest in place of him. ⁷From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land flowing with streams of water. ⁸At that time Yahweh set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of Yahweh to stand before^d Yahweh, to serve him and to bless the people in his name until this day. ⁹Therefore there was not^e for Levi an allotment or an inheritance along with his brothers; rather Yahweh is his inheritance just as Yahweh your God promised^f to him.

¹⁰And I stayed on the mountain just as during the former forty days^g and forty nights,^h and Yahweh listened to me also on that occasion;ⁱ Yahweh was not…