Deuteronomy: Chapter 11
1. Therefore you shall love The Lord your God, and
keep his charge, and his statutes, and his ordinances, and his commandments,
always.
2. Know you this day: for I don't speak with your
children who have not known, and who have not seen the chastisement of The Lord
your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm,
3. and his signs, and his works, which he did in the
midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and to all his land;
4. and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their
horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red Sea {or, Sea of Reeds} to overflow them as they pursued
after you, and how The Lord has destroyed them to this day;
5. and what he did to you in the wilderness, until
you came to this place;
6. and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of
Eliab, the son of Reuben; how the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them
up, and their households, and their tents, and every living thing that followed
them, in the midst of all Israel:
7. but your eyes have seen all the great work of The
Lord which he did.
8. Therefore shall you keep all the commandment
which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the
land, where you go over to possess it;
9. and that you may prolong your days in the land,
which The Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed, a land
flowing with milk and honey.
10. For the land, where you go in to possess it, isn't
as the land of Egypt, from whence you came out, where you sowed your seed, and
watered it with your foot, as a garden of herbs;
11. but the land, where you go over to possess it, is
a land of hills and valleys, [and] drinks water of the rain of the sky,
12. a land which The Lord your God cares for: the
eyes of The Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year even
to the end of the year.
13. It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to
my commandments which I command you this day, to love The Lord your God, and to
serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14. that I will give the rain of your land in its
season, the former rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain,
and your new wine, and your oil.
15. I will give grass in your fields for your
livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
16. Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be
deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;
17. and the anger of The Lord be kindled against you,
and he shut up the sky, so that there shall be no rain, and the land shall not
yield its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which The Lord
gives you.
18. Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your
heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and
they shall be for symbols between your eyes.
19. You shall teach them your children, talking of
them, when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you
lie down, and when you rise up.
20. You shall write them on the door posts of your
house, and on your gates;
21. that your days may be multiplied, and the days of
your children, in the land which The Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as
the days of the heavens above the earth.
22. For if you shall diligently keep all this
commandment which I command you, to do it, to love The Lord your God, to walk in
all his ways, and to cleave to him;
23. then will The Lord drive out all these nations
from before you, and you shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than
yourselves.
24. Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall
tread shall be yours: from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the
river Euphrates, even to the hinder sea shall be your border.
25. There shall no man be able to stand before you: The
Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land
that you shall tread on, as he has spoken to you.
26. Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a
curse:
27. the blessing, if you shall listen to the
commandments of The Lord your God, which I command you this day;
28. and the curse, if you shall not listen to the commandments
of The Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this
day, to go after other gods, which you have not known.
29. It shall happen, when The Lord your God shall
bring you into the land where you go to possess it, that you shall set the
blessing on Mount Gerizim, and the curse on Mount Ebal.
30. Aren't they beyond the Jordan, behind the way of
the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the
Arabah, over against Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?
31. For you are to pass over the Jordan to go in to
possess the land which The Lord your God gives you, and you shall possess it, and
dwell therein.
32. You shall observe to do all the statutes and the
ordinances which I set before you this day.