Deuteronomy 6–8

CHAPTER 6

The Commandment to Love Yahweh

¹“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments, which Yahweh your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do it in the land where you are going over to possess it,

²so that you and your son and your grandson might ^afear Yahweh your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you, ^ball the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.

³“O Israel, you shall listen and ¹be careful to do it, that ^ait may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in ^ba land flowing with milk and honey.

⁴“^aHear, O Israel! ¹Yahweh is our God, ^bYahweh is one!

⁵“^aYou shall love Yahweh your God ^bwith all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

⁶“^aThese words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.

⁷“^aYou shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

⁸“^aYou shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as ¹phylacteries between your eyes.

⁹“^aYou shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

¹⁰“Then it will be, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, ^agreat and good cities which you did not build,

¹¹and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and ^ayou will eat and be satisfied,

¹²then beware, lest ^ayou forget Yahweh who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of ¹slavery.

¹³“^aYahweh your God you shall ¹fear; and Him you shall serve; and by His name you shall ^bswear.

¹⁴“^aYou shall not walk after other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you,

¹⁵for Yahweh your God in the midst of you is a ^ajealous God—lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and He destroy you from the face of the earth.

¹⁶“^aYou shall not put Yahweh your God to the test, ^bas you tested Him at Massah.

¹⁷“^aYou should diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you.

¹⁸“And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of Yahweh, that ^ait may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which Yahweh swore to give your fathers,

¹⁹by driving out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has spoken.

²⁰“^aWhen your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which Yahweh our God commanded you?’

²¹then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and Yahweh brought us from Egypt with a strong hand.

²²‘Moreover, Yahweh showed great and calamitous signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household;

²³but He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.’

²⁴“So Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, ^ato fear Yahweh our God for our good all our days and ^bfor our survival, as it is today.

²⁵“^aAnd it will be righteousness for us if we ¹are careful to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, just as He commanded us.

CHAPTER 7

Devote the Nations to Destruction

¹“^aWhen Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and He clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, ^bseven nations more numerous and stronger than you,

²and when Yahweh your God gives them over before you and you strike them down, ^athen you shall devote them to destruction. ^bYou shall cut no covenant with them ^cand show no favor to them.

³“Furthermore, ^ayou shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your ¹daughters to ²their sons, nor shall you take ³their daughters for your ⁴sons.

⁴“For ¹they will turn your ²sons away from ³following Me, and they will serve other gods; then the anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you, and ^aHe will quickly destroy you.

⁵“But thus you shall do to them: ^ayou shall tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut their ¹Asherim in pieces and burn their graven images with fire.

⁶“For you are ^aa holy people to Yahweh your God; Yahweh your God has chosen you to be ^ba people for His ¹own treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the ²earth.

⁷“^aYahweh did not set His affection on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples,

⁸but because Yahweh loved you and kept the ^aoath which He swore to your fathers, ^bYahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of ¹slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹“You shall know therefore that Yahweh your God, ^aHe is God, ^bthe faithful God, ^cwho keeps ¹His covenant and ²His lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who ^dlove Him and keep His commandments;

¹⁰but ^arepays those who hate Him to ¹their faces, to make ²them perish; He will not delay ³with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face.

¹¹“Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.

Yahweh’s Covenant Blessings

¹²“^aThen it will be, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you ¹His covenant and ²His lovingkindness which He swore to your fathers.

¹³“And He will ^alove you and bless you and ^bmultiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, ¹in the land which He swore to your fathers to give you.

¹⁴“You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female ^abarren among you or among your cattle.

¹⁵“^aAnd Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will give them to all who hate you.

¹⁶“And you shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God will give over to you; ^ayour eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be ^ba snare to you.

¹⁷“If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are more numerous than I; how can I ^adispossess them?’

¹⁸you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well ^aremember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt:

^19athe great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which Yahweh your God brought you out. So shall Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

²⁰“Moreover, Yahweh your God will send ^athe hornet against them until those who remain and hide themselves from you perish.

²¹“You shall not dread ¹them, for ^aYahweh your God is in your midst, ^ba great and fearsome God.

²²“^aAnd Yahweh your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, lest the ¹wild beasts become too numerous for you.

²³“^aBut Yahweh your God will give them over before you and will ¹throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed.

²⁴“^aAnd He will give their kings into your hand so that you will make their name perish from under heaven; ^bno man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them.

²⁵“The graven images of their gods you are to ^aburn with fire; you shall ^bnot covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be ^csnared by it, for it is an ^dabomination to Yahweh your God.

²⁶“And you shall not bring an abomination into your house and become devoted to ^adestruction like it; you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.

CHAPTER 8

Do Not Forget Yahweh Your God

¹“The entire commandment that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you ^amay live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to give to your fathers.

²“^aAnd you shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has ^bled you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, ^ctesting you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

³“And He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that ^aman does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh.

⁴“^aYour clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.

⁵“^aThus you shall know in your heart that Yahweh your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.

⁶“So you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in His ways and to ¹fear Him.

⁷“For ^aYahweh your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;

⁸a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey;

⁹a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

¹⁰“And so ^ayou will eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land which He has given you.

¹¹“¹Beware lest you ^aforget Yahweh your God by not keeping His commandments and His judgments and His statutes which I am commanding you today;

¹²lest ^ayou eat and are satisfied and build good houses and live in them,

¹³and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies,

¹⁴and your heart becomes ¹lifted up and you ^aforget Yahweh your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of ²slavery.

¹⁵“He led you…