Deuteronomy 9–11

Chapter 9

¹“Hear, O Israel; you are to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves, cities great and fortified up to heaven, ²a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ ³Know therefore this day that he who goes over before you as a devouring fire is the Lord your God; he will destroy them and subdue them before you; so you shall drive them out, and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

⁴“Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. ⁵Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶“Know therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. ⁷Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you came out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. ⁹When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰And the Lord gave me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. ¹¹And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant. ¹²Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image.’

¹³“Furthermore the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people; ¹⁴let 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 greater than they.’ ¹⁵So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. ¹⁷So I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke 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 which you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁹For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened to me that time also. ²⁰And the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. ²¹Then I took the sinful thing, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw the dust of it into the brook that descended out of the mountain.

²²“At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the Lord to wrath. ²³And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and did not believe him or obey his voice. ²⁴You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

²⁵“So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. ²⁶And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thy heritage, whom thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness, or their sin, ²⁸lest the land from which thou didst bring us say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.” ²⁹For they are thy people and thy heritage, whom thou didst bring out by thy great power and by thy outstretched arm.’

Chapter 10

¹“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Hew two tables of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. ²And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ ³So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tables in my hand. ⁴And he wrote on the tables, as at the first writing, the ten commandments^g which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. ⁵Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.

⁶(The people of Israel journeyed from Be-eroth Bene-jaakan^h to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his stead. ⁷From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water. ⁸At 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. ⁹Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.)

¹⁰“I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord hearkened to me that time also; the Lord was unwilling to destroy you. ¹¹And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

¹²“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but 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, ¹³and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I command you this day for your good? ¹⁴Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it; ¹⁵yet the Lord set his heart in love upon your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as at this day. ¹⁶Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. ¹⁷For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. ¹⁸He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. ²⁰You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve him and cleave to him, and by his name you shall swear. ²¹He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen. ²²Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude.

Chapter 11

¹“You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments always. ²And consider this day (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, ³his signs and his deeds which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; ⁴and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; ⁵and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place; ⁶and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben; how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel; ⁷for your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which he did.

⁸“You shall therefore keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land which you are going over to possess, ⁹and that you may live long in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰For the land which you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your feet, like a garden of vegetables; ¹¹but the land which you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, ¹²a land which the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³“And if you will obey my commandments which I command you this day, to love the …