Deuteronomy 9–11

The Consequences of Rebelling against God

⁹“Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan today, to go in and dispossess nations larger and mightier than you, great cities, fortified to the heavens,^{* 2}a strong and tall people, the offspring of the Anakim, whom you know. You have heard it said, ‘Who can stand up to the Anakim?’^{* 3}Know, then, today that the Lord your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.^*

⁴“When the Lord your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land’; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.^{* 5}It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the Lord made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.^*

⁶“Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.^{* 7}Remember; do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.

⁸“Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.^{* 9}When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.^{* 10}And the Lord gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.^{* 11}At the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. ¹²Then the Lord said to me, ‘Get up; go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded them; they have cast an image for themselves.’^{* 13}Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people.^{* 14}Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.’^*

¹⁵“So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.^{* 16}Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God, by casting for yourselves an image;^s you had been quick to turn from the way that the Lord had commanded you.^{* 17}So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. ¹⁸Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the Lord by doing what was evil in his sight.^{* 19}For I was afraid that the anger that the Lord bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.^{* 20}The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time. ²¹Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust, and I threw the dust into the stream that runs down the mountain.^*

²²“At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the Lord to wrath.^{* 23}And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,’ you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. ²⁴You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has^t known you.^*

²⁵“Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate before the Lord when the Lord intended to destroy you,^{* 26}I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Lord God, do not destroy your people, your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.^{* 27}Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin, ²⁸lest the land from which you have brought us say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.” ²⁹For they are your people, your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’^*

The Second Pair of Tablets

¹⁰“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood.^{* 2}I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark.’^{* 3}So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.^{* 4}Then he wrote on the tablets the same words as before, the ten commandments^u that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly, and the Lord gave them to me.^{* 5}So I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made, and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”^*

⁶(The Israelites journeyed from Beeroth-bene-jaakan^v to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; his son Eleazar succeeded him as priest.^{* 7}From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with flowing streams.^{* 8}At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day.^{* 9}Therefore Levi has no allotment or inheritance with his kindred; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God promised him.)^*

¹⁰“I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the Lord listened to me. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you.^{* 11}The Lord said to me, ‘Get up, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and occupy the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.’

The Essence of the Law

¹²“So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,^{* 13}and to keep the commandments of the Lord and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. ¹⁴Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it,^{* 15}yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.^{* 16}Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.^{* 17}For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe,^{* 18}who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.^{* 19}You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.^{* 20}You shall fear the Lord your God; him you shall serve; to him you shall hold fast; and by his name you shall swear.^{* 21}He is your praise; he is your God who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.^{* 22}Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.^*

Rewards for Obedience

¹¹“You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always.^{* 2}Remember today that it was not your children (who have not known or seen the discipline of the Lord your God), but it is you who must acknowledge his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm,^{* 3}his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land; ⁴what he did to the Egyptian army, to their horses and chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea^w flow over them as they pursued you, so that the Lord has destroyed them to this day;^{* 5}what he did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place; ⁶and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how in the midst of all Israel the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, their tents, and every living being in their company;^{* 7}for it is your own eyes that have seen every great deed that the Lord did.

⁸“Keep, then, the entire commandment that I am commanding you today, so that you may have strength to go in and occupy the land that you are crossing over to occupy^{* 9}and so that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.^{* 10}For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden. ¹¹But the land that you are crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys watered by rain from the sky,^{* 12}a land that the Lord your God looks after. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³“If you will only heed his every commandment^x that I am commanding you today—loving the Lord your God and serving him with all your heart and…