Deuteronomy 11

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 your God cares; ⁱthe eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

¹³‘And it shall be that if you earnestly ⁵obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴then ^jI ⁶will give you the rain for your land in its season, ^kthe early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. ^15lAnd I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may ^meat and be ⁷filled.’ ¹⁶Take heed to yourselves, ⁿlest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and ^oserve other gods and worship them, ¹⁷lest ^pthe Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He ^qshut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and ^ryou perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸“Therefore ^syou shall ⁸lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your ^tsoul, and ^ubind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ^19vYou shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ^20wAnd you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹that ^xyour days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like ^ythe days of the heavens above the earth.

²²“For if ^zyou carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and ^ato hold fast to Him—²³then the Lord will ^bdrive out all these nations from before you, and you will ^cdispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. ^24dEvery place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: ^efrom the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the ⁹Western Sea, shall be your territory. ²⁵No man shall be able to ^fstand ¹against you; the Lord your God will put the ^gdread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.

^26h“Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷ⁱthe blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; ²⁸and the ^jcurse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. ²⁹Now it shall be, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the ^kblessing on Mount Gerizim and the ^lcurse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, ^mbeside the terebinth trees of Moreh? ³¹For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess it and dwell in it. ³²And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which I set before you today.