Deuteronomy 9–11

Israel’s Rebellions Reviewed

9“Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, ²a people great and tall, the ^adescendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’ ³Therefore understand today that the Lord your God is He who ^bgoes over before you as a ^cconsuming fire. ^dHe will destroy them and bring them down before you; ^eso you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you.

^4f“Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is ^gbecause of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. ^5hIt is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may ¹fulfill the ⁱword which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a ^jstiff-necked ²people.

⁷“Remember! Do not forget how you ^kprovoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. ^lFrom the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸Also ^min Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. ⁹ⁿWhen I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and ^oforty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. ^10pThen the Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire ^qin ³the day of the assembly. ¹¹And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

¹²“Then the Lord said to me, ^r‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have ^squickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.’

¹³“Furthermore ^tthe Lord spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed ^uthey are a ⁴stiff-necked people. ^14vLet Me alone, that I may destroy them and ^wblot out their name from under heaven; ^xand I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’

^15y“So I turned and came down from the mountain, and ^zthe mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶And ^aI looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and ^bbroke them before your eyes. ¹⁸And I ^cfell ⁵down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. ^19dFor I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. ^eBut the Lord listened to me at that time also. ²⁰And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. ²¹Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I ^fthrew its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.

²²“Also at ^gTaberah and ^hMassah and ⁱKibroth Hattaavah you ⁶provoked the Lord to wrath. ²³Likewise, ^jwhen the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and ^kyou did not believe Him nor obey His voice. ^24lYou have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

^25m“Thus I ⁷prostrated myself before the Lord; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the Lord had said He would destroy you. ²⁶Therefore I prayed to the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and ⁿYour inheritance whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin, ²⁸lest the land from which You brought us should say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.” ²⁹Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.’

The Second Pair of Tablets

10“At that time the Lord said to me, ¹‘Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ^aark of wood. ²And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and ^byou shall put them in the ark.’

³“So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. ⁴And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten ²Commandments, ^cwhich the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. ⁵Then I turned and ^dcame down from the mountain, and ^eput the tablets in the ark which I had made; ^fand there they are, just as the Lord commanded me.”

⁶(Now the children of Israel journeyed from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah, where Aaron ^gdied, and where he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered as priest in his ³stead. ^7hFrom there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of ⁴rivers of water. ⁸At that time ⁱthe Lord ⁵separated the tribe of Levi ^jto bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, ^kto stand before the Lord to minister to Him and ^lto bless in His name, to this day. ^9mTherefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God promised him.)

¹⁰“As at the first time, ⁿI stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; ^othe Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to destroy you. ^11pThen the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, begin your journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

The Essence of the Law

¹²“And now, Israel, ^qwhat does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to ^rlove Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today ^sfor your ⁶good? ¹⁴Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the ^tLord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. ¹⁵The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their ⁷descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. ¹⁶Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your ^uheart, and be ^vstiff-necked ⁸no longer. ¹⁷For the Lord your God is ^wGod of gods and ^xLord of lords, the great God, ^ymighty and awesome, who ^zshows no partiality nor takes a bribe. ^18aHe administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. ^20bYou shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. ²¹He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. ²²Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.

Love and Obedience Rewarded

11“Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. ²Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the ¹chastening of the Lord your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm—³His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; ⁴what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: ^ahow He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; ⁵what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; ⁶and ^bwhat He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was ²in their possession, in the midst of all Israel—⁷but your eyes have ^cseen every great ³act of the Lord which He did.

⁸“Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may ^dbe strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, ⁹and ^ethat you may prolong your days in the land ^fwhich the Lord ⁴swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ^g‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’ ¹⁰For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; ^11hbut the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, ¹²a land for which the Lord…