11Love the Lord your God and always obey his orders, rules, laws, and commands. ²Remember today it was not your children who saw and felt the correction of the Lord your God. They did not see his majesty, his power, his strength, ³or his signs and the things he did in Egypt to the king and his whole country. ⁴They did not see what he did to the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, when he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. The Lord ruined them forever. ⁵They did not see what he did for you in the desert until you arrived here. ⁶They did not see what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the ground opened up and swallowed them, their families, their tents, and everyone who stood with them in Israel. ⁷It was you who saw all these great things the Lord has done.

⁸So obey all the commands I am giving you today so that you will be strong and can go in and take the land you are going to take as your own. ⁹Then you will live a long time in the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a fertile land. ¹⁰The land you are going to take is not like Egypt, where you were. There you had to plant your seed and water it, like a vegetable garden, by using your feet. ¹¹But the land that you will soon cross the Jordan River to take is a land of hills and valleys, a land that drinks rain from heaven. ¹²It is a land the Lord your God cares for. His eyes are on it continually, and he watches it from the beginning of the year to the end.

¹³If you carefully obey the commands I am giving you today and love the Lord your God and serve him with your whole being, ¹⁴then he will send rain on your land at the right time, in the fall and spring, and you will be able to gather your grain, new wine, and oil. ¹⁵He will put grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will have plenty to eat.

¹⁶Be careful, or you will be fooled and will turn away to serve and worship other gods. ¹⁷If you do, the Lord will become angry with you and will shut the heavens so it will not rain. Then the land will not grow crops, and you will soon die in the good land the Lord is giving you. ¹⁸Remember my words with your whole being. Write them down and tie them to your hands as a sign; tie them on your foreheads to remind you. ¹⁹Teach them well to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰Write them on your doors and gates ²¹so that both you and your children will live a long time in the land the Lord promised your ancestors, as long as the skies are above the earth.

²²If you are careful to obey every command I am giving you to follow, and love the Lord your God, and do what he has told you to do, and are loyal to him, ²³then the Lord will force all those nations out of the land ahead of you, and you will take the land from nations that are bigger and stronger than you. ²⁴Everywhere you step will be yours. Your land will go from the desert to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁵No one will be able to stop you. The Lord your God will do what he promised and will make the people afraid everywhere you go.

²⁶See, today I am letting you choose a blessing or a curse. ²⁷You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. ²⁸But you will be cursed if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God. So do not disobey the commands I am giving you today, and do not worship other gods you do not know. ²⁹When the Lord your God brings you into the land you will take as your own, you are to announce the blessings from Mount Gerizim and the curses from Mount Ebal. ³⁰(These mountains are on the other side of the Jordan River, to the west, toward the sunset. They are near the great trees of Moreh in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley opposite Gilgal.) ³¹You will soon cross the Jordan River to enter and take the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and live there, ³²be careful to obey all the commands and laws I am giving you today.

The Place for Worship

12These are the commands and laws you must carefully obey in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Obey them as long as you live in the land. ²When you inherit the lands of these nations, you must completely destroy all the places where they serve their gods, on high mountains and hills and under every green tree. ³Tear down their altars, smash their holy stone pillars, and burn their Asherah idols in the fire. Cut down their idols and destroy their names from those places.

⁴Don’t worship the Lord your God that way, ⁵but look for the place the Lord your God will choose—a place among your tribes where he is to be worshiped. Go there, ⁶and bring to that place your burnt offerings and sacrifices; bring a tenth of what you gain and your special gifts; bring what you have promised and the special gifts you want to give the Lord, and bring the first animals born to your herds and flocks.

⁷There you will be together with the Lord your God. There you and your families will eat, and you will enjoy all the good things for which you have worked, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸Do not worship the way we have been doing today, each person doing what he thinks is right. ⁹You have not yet come to a resting place, to the land the Lord your God will give you as your own. ¹⁰But soon you will cross the Jordan River to live in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own, where he will give you rest from all your enemies and you will live in safety. ¹¹Then the Lord your God will choose a place where he is to be worshiped. To that place you must bring everything I tell you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your offerings of a tenth of what you gain, your special gifts, and all your best things you promised to the Lord. ¹²There rejoice before the Lord your God. Everyone should rejoice: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns who have no land of their own. ¹³Be careful that you don’t sacrifice your burnt offerings just anywhere you please. ¹⁴Offer them only in the place the Lord will choose. He will choose a place in one of your tribes, and there you must do everything I am commanding you.

¹⁵But you may kill your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were a deer or a gazelle; this is the blessing the Lord your God is giving you. Anyone, clean or unclean, may eat this meat, ¹⁶but do not eat the blood. Pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷Do not eat in your own towns what belongs to the Lord: one-tenth of your grain, new wine, or oil; the first animals born to your herds or flocks; whatever you have promised to give; the special gifts you want to give to the Lord, or any other gifts. ¹⁸Eat these things when you are together with the Lord your God, in the place the Lord your God chooses to be worshiped. Everyone must do this: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns. Rejoice in the Lord your God’s presence about the things you have worked for. ¹⁹Be careful not to forget the Levites as long as you live in the land.

²⁰When the Lord your God enlarges your country as he has promised, and you want some meat so you say, “I want some meat,” you may eat as much meat as you want. ²¹If the Lord your God chooses a place where he is to be worshiped that is too far away from you, you may kill animals from your herds and flocks, which the Lord has given to you. I have commanded that you may do this. You may eat as much of them as you want in your own towns, ²²as you would eat gazelle or deer meat. Both clean and unclean people may eat this meat, ²³but be sure you don’t eat the blood, because the life is in the blood. Don’t eat the life with the meat. ²⁴Don’t eat the blood, but pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵If you don’t eat it, things will go well for you and your children, because you will be doing what the Lord says is right.

²⁶Take your holy things and the things you have promised to give, and go to the place the Lord will choose. ²⁷Present your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God, both the meat and the blood. The blood of your sacrifices should be poured beside the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. ²⁸Be careful to obey all the rules I am giving you so that things will always go well for you and your children, and you will be doing what the Lord your God says is good and right.

²⁹You will enter the land and take it away from the nations that the Lord your God will destroy ahead of you. When you force them out and live in their land, ³⁰they will be destroyed for you, but be careful not to be trapped by asking about their gods. Don’t say, “How do these nations worship? I will do the same.” ³¹Don’t worship the Lord your God that way, because the Lord hates the evil ways they worship their gods. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods!

³²Be sure to do everything I have commanded you. Do not add anything to it, and do not take anything away from it.

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