Bible in Basic English
DEUTERONOMY, 1
Moses' speech
1:1 These are the words which Moses said to all Israel on the far side of Jordan, in the waste land in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab on the other.
2 It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.
3 Now in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses gave to the children of Israel all the orders which the Lord had given him for them ;
4 After he had overcome Sihon, king of the Amorites, ruling in Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, ruling in Ashtaroth, at Edrei :
5 On the far side of Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses gave the people this law, saying,
6 The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have been long enough in this mountain :
7 Make a move now, and go on your way into the hill-country of the Amorites and the places near it, in the Arabah and the hill-country and in the lowlands and in the South and by the seaside, all the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
1:8 See, all the land is before you: go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them.
1:9 At that time I said to you, I am not able to undertake the care of you by myself ;
10 The Lord your God has given you increase, and now you are like the stars of heaven in number.
11 May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times greater in number than you are, and give you his blessing as he has said !
12 How is it possible for me by myself to be responsible for you, and undertake the weight of all your troubles and your arguments ?
13 Take for yourselves men who are wise, far-seeing, and respected among you, from your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.
14 And you made answer and said to me, It is good for us to do as you say.
15 So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men and respected, and made them rulers over you, captains of thousands and captains of hundreds and captains of fifties and captains of tens, and overseers of your tribes.
16 And at that time I gave orders to your judges, saying, Let all questions between your brothers come before you for hearing, and give decisions uprightly between a man and his brother or one from another nation who is with him.
17 In judging, do not let a man's position have any weight with you; give hearing equally to small and great; have no fear of any man, for it is God who is judge : and any cause in which you are not able to give a decision, you are to put before me and I will give it a hearing.
18 And at that time I gave you all the orders which you were to do.
1:19 Then we went on from Horeb, through all that great and cruel waste which you saw, on our way to the hill-country of the Amorites, as the Lord gave us orders; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
20 And I said to you, You have come to the hill-country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.
21 See now, the Lord your God has put the land into your hands: go up and take it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said to you ; have no fear and do not be troubled.
22 And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us to go through the land with care and give us an account of the way we are to go and the towns to which we will come.
23 And what you said seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from among you, one from every tribe;
24 And they went up into the hill-country and came to the valley of Eshcol, and saw what was there.
25 And taking in their hands some of the fruit of the land, they came down again to us, and gave us their account, saying, It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.
1:26 But going against the order of the Lord your God, you would not go up :
27 And you made an angry outcry in your tents, and said, In his hate for us the Lord has taken us out of the land of Egypt, to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction.
28 Where are we going up ? Our brothers have made our hearts feeble with fear by saying, The people are greater and taller than we are, and the towns are great and walled up to heaven ; and more than this, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.
29 Then I said to you, Have no fear of them.
30 The Lord your God who goes before you will be fighting for you, and will do such wonders as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes ;
31 And in the waste land, where you have seen how the Lord was supporting you, as a man does his son, in all your journeying till you came to this place.
32 But for all this, you had no faith in the Lord your God,
33 Who goes before you on your way, looking for a place where you may put up your tents, in fire by night, lighting up the way you are to go, and in a cloud by day.
1:34 And the Lord, hearing your words, was angry, and said with an oath,
35 Truly, not one of this evil generation will see that good land which I said I would give to your fathers,
36 But only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he will see it ; and to him and to his children I will give the land over which his feet have gone, because he has been true to the Lord with all his heart.
37 And, in addition, the Lord was angry with me because of you, saying, You yourself will not go into it :
38 Joshua, the son of Nun, your servant, he will go into the land : say to him that he is to be strong, for he will be Israel's guide into their heritage.
39 And your little ones, who, you said, would come into strange hands, your children, who now have no knowledge of good or evil, they will go into that land, and to them I will give it and it will be theirs.
40 But as for you, go back, journeying into the waste land by the way of the Red Sea.
1:41 Then you said to me, We have done evil against the Lord, we will go up to the attack, as the Lord our God has given us orders. And arming yourselves every one, you made ready to go up without care into the hill-country.
42 And the Lord said to me, Say to them, Do not go up to the attack; for I am not among you, and you will be overcome by those who are against you.
43 This I said to you, but you gave no attention and went against the orders of the Lord, and in your pride went up into the hill-country.
44 And the Amorites who were in the hill-country came out against you and put you to flight, rushing after you like bees, and overcame you in Seir, driving you even as far as Hormah.
45 And you came back, weeping before the Lord; but the Lord gave no attention to your cries and did not give ear to you.
46 So you were kept waiting in Kadesh for a long time.
DEUTERONOMY, 2
Victory over Sihon and Os
2:1 Then we went back, journeying into the waste land by the way to the Red Sea, as the Lord had said to me: and we were a long time going round Mount Seir.
2 And the Lord said to me,
3 You have been journeying round this mountain long enough : now go to the north;
4 And give the people orders, saying, You are about to go through the land of your brothers, the children of Esau, who are living in Seir; and they will have fear of you ; so take care what you do:
5 Make no attack on them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even space enough for a man's foot : because I have given Mount Seir to Esau for his heritage.
6 You may get food for your needs from them for a price, and water for drinking.
7 For the blessing of the Lord your God has been on you in all the work of your hands: he has knowledge of your wanderings through this great waste : these forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have been short of nothing.
8 So we went on past our brothers, the children of Esau, living in Seir, by the road through the Arabah, from Elath and Ezion-geber. And turning, we went by the road through the waste land of Moab.
9 And the Lord said to me, Make no attack on Moab and do not go to war with them, for I will not give you any of his land: because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for their heritage.
10 (In the past the Emim were living there ; a great people, equal in numbers to the Anakim and as tall ;
11 They are numbered among the Rephaim, like the Anakim ; but are named Emim by the Moabites.
12 And the Horites in earlier times were living in Seir, but the children of Esau took their place; they sent destruction on them and took their land for themselves, as Israel did to the land of his heritage which the Lord gave them.)
13 Get up now, and go over the stream Zered. So we went over the stream Zered.
14 Thirty-eight years had gone by from the time when we came away from Kadesh-barnea till we went over the stream Zered ; by that time all the generation of the men of war among us were dead, as the Lord had said.
15 For the hand of the Lord was against them, working their destruction, till all were dead.
2:16 So when death had overtaken all the men of war among the people,
17 The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
18 You are about to go by Ar, the limit of the country of Moab ;
19 And when you come near the land of the children of Ammon, give them no cause of trouble and do not make war on them, for I will not give you any of the land of the children of Ammon for your heritage : because I have given it to the children of Lot.
20 (That land is said to have been a land of the Rephaim, for Rephaim had been living there in earlier times, but they were named Zamzummim by the Ammonites ;
21 They were a great people, tall as the Anakim, and equal to them in number; but the Lord sent destruction on them and the children of Ammon took their place, living in their land ;
22 As he did for the children of Esau living in Seir, when he sent destruction on the Horites before them, and they took their land where they are living to this day :
23 And the Avvim, living in the small towns as far as Gaza, came to destruction by the hands of the Caphtorim who came out from Caphtor and took their land.)
24 Get up now, and go on your journey, crossing over the valley of the Arnon: see, I have given into your hands Sihon, the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and all his land : go forward to make it yours, and make war on him,
25 From now on I will put the fear of you in all peoples under heaven, who, hearing of you, will be shaking with fear and grief of heart because of you.
2:26 Then from the waste land of Kedemoth I sent representatives to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying,
27 Let me go through your land: I will keep to the highway, not turning to the right or to the left ;
28 Let me have food, at a price, for my needs, and water for drinking : only let me go through on foot ;
29 As the children of Esau did for me in Seir and the Moabites in Ar ; till I have gone over Jordan into the land which the Lord our God is giving us.
30 But Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us go through; for the Lord your God made his spirit hard and his heart strong, so that he might give him up into your hands as at this day.
31 And the Lord said to me, See, from now on I have given Sihon and his land into your hands : go forward now to take his land and make it yours.
32 Then Sihon came out against us with all his people, to make an attack on us at Jahaz.
33 And the Lord our God gave him into our hands; and we overcame him and his sons and all his people.
34 At that time we took all his towns, and gave them over to complete destruction, together with men, women, and children; we had no mercy on any :
35 Only the cattle we took for ourselves, with the goods from the towns we had taken.
36 From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon and from the town in the valley as far as Gilead, no town was strong enough to keep us out ; the Lord our God gave them all into our hands:
37 But you did not go near the land of the children of Ammon, that is, all the side of the river Jabbok or the towns of the hill-country, wherever the Lord our God had said we were not to go.
DEUTERONOMY, 3
Moses cannot cross Jordan
3:1 Then turning we took the road to Bashan : and Og, king of Bashan, came out against us with all his people, and made an attack on us at Edrei.
2 And the Lord said to me, Have no fear of him : for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hands ; do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon.
3 So the Lord our God gave up Og, king of Bashan, and all his people into our hands; and we overcame him so completely that all his people came to their end in the fight.
4 At that time we took all his towns ; there was not one town of the sixty towns, all the country of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan, which we did not take.
5 All these towns had high walls round them with doors and locks ; and in addition we took a great number of unwalled towns.
6 And we put them to the curse, every town together with men, women, and children.
7 But we took for ourselves all the cattle and the stored wealth of the towns.
8 At that time we took their land from the two kings of the Amorites on the far side of Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon ;
9 (By the Sidonians, Hermon is named Sirion, and by the Amorites Shenir ;)
10 All the towns of the table-land and all Gilead and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, towns of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
11 (For Og, king of Bashan, was the last of all the Rephaim ; his bed was made of iron ; is it not in Rabbah, in the land of the children of Ammon ? It was nine cubits long and four cubits wide, measured by the common cubit.)
3:12 And this land which we took at that time, from Aroer by the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill-country of Gilead with its towns, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites.
13 The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, all the land of Argob, together with Bashan, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (This land is named the land of the Rephaim.
14 Jair, the son of Manasseh, took all the land of Argob, as far as the country of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, naming it, Bashan, Havvoth-Jair after himself, as it is to this day.)
15 And Gilead I gave to Machir.
16 And the land from Gilead to the valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a limit, as far as the river Jabbok which is the limit of the country of the children of Ammon, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites ;
17 As well as the Arabah, with the river Jordan as their limit, from Chinnereth to the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah to the east.
3:18 At that time I gave you orders, saying, The Lord has given you this land for your heritage : all the men of war are to go over armed before your brothers the children of Israel.
19 But your wives and your little ones and your cattle (for it is clear that you have much cattle) may go on living in the towns I have given you ;
20 Till the Lord has given rest to your brothers as to you, and till they have taken for themselves the land which the Lord your God is giving them on the other side of Jordan : then you may go back, every man of you, to the heritage which I have given you.
21 And I gave orders to Joshua at that time, saying, Your eyes have seen what the Lord your God has done to these two kings : so will the Lord do to all the kingdoms into which you come.
22 Have no fear of them, for the Lord your God will be fighting for you.
3:23 And at that time I made request to the Lord, saying,
24 O Lord God, you have now for the first time let your servant see your great power and the strength of your hand ; for what god is there in heaven or on earth able to do such great works and such acts of power ?
25 Let me go over, O Lord, and see the good land on the other side of Jordan, and that fair mountain country, even Lebanon.
26 But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not give ear to my prayer; and the Lord said to me, Let it be enough, say no more about this thing.
27 Go up to the top of Pisgah, and turning your eyes to the west and the north, to the south and the east, see the land with your eyes : for you are not to go over Jordan.
28 But give my orders to Joshua, comforting him and making him strong; for he is to go over Jordan at the head of this people, and he will give them this land which you will see for their heritage.
29 So we were waiting in the valley facing Beth-peor.
DEUTERONOMY, 4
The Lord your God
4:1 And now give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I am teaching you, and do them; so that life may be yours, and you may go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
2 Make no addition to the orders which I give you, and take nothing from them, but keep the orders of the Lord your God which I give you.
3 Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor : for destruction came from the Lord on all those among you who went after Baal-peor.
4 But you who kept faith with the Lord are living, every one of you, today.
5 I have been teaching you laws and decisions, as I was ordered to do by the Lord my God, so that you might keep them in the land to which you are going to take it for your heritage.
6 So keep these laws and do them ; for so will your wisdom and good sense be clear in the eyes of the peoples, who hearing all these laws will say, Truly, this great nation is a wise and far-seeing people.
7 For what great nation has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is, whenever we are turned to him in prayer ?
8 And what great nation has laws and decisions so right as all this law which I put before you today ?
4:9 Only take care, and keep watch on your soul, for fear that the things which your eyes have seen go from your memory and from your heart all the days of your life ; but let the knowledge of them be given to your children and to your children's children;
10 That day when you were waiting before the Lord your God in Horeb, and the Lord said to me, Make all the people come together, so that hearing my words they may go in fear of me all the days of their life on earth and give this teaching to their children.
11 And you came near, waiting at the foot of the mountain ; and flames of fire went up from the mountain to the heart of heaven, with dark clouds, and all was black as night.
12 And the voice of the Lord came to you out of the fire : the sound of his words came to your ears but you saw no form; there was nothing but a voice.
13 And he gave you his agreement with you, the ten rules which you were to keep, which he put in writing on the two stones of the law.
14 And the Lord gave me orders at that time to make clear to you these laws and decisions, so that you might do them in the land to which you are going, and which is to be your heritage.
4:15 So keep watch on yourselves with care ; for you saw no form of any sort on the day when the voice of the Lord came to you in Horeb out of the heart of the fire :
16 So that you may not be turned to evil ways and make for yourselves an image in the form of any living thing, male or female,
17 Or any beast of the earth, or winged bird of the air,
18 Or of anything which goes flat on the earth, or any fish in the water under the earth.
19 And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven, and you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the army of heaven, do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship, or become the servants of what the Lord has given equally to all peoples under heaven.
20 But the Lord has taken you out of the flaming fire, out of Egypt, to be to him the people of his heritage, as you are today.
21 And the Lord was angry with me because of you, and made an oath that I was not to go over Jordan into the good land which the Lord is giving you for your heritage :
22 But death is to come to me in this land, I may not go over Jordan : but you will go over and take that good land for your heritage.
23 Take care that you do not let the agreement of the Lord your God, which he has made with you, go out of your mind, or make for yourselves images of any sort, against the orders which the Lord your God has given you.
24 For the Lord your God is an all-burning fire, and he will not let the honour which is his be given to any other.
4:25 If, when you have had children and children's children, and have been living a long time in the land, you are turned to evil ways, and make an image of any sort, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, moving him to wrath :
26 May heaven and earth be my witnesses against you today, that destruction will quickly overtake you, cutting you off from that land which you are going over Jordan to take ; your days will not be long in that land, but you will come to a complete end.
27 And the Lord will send you wandering among the peoples ; only a small band of you will be kept from death among the nations where the Lord will send you.
28 There you will be the servants of gods, made by men's hands, of wood and stone, having no power of seeing or hearing or taking food or smelling.
29 But if in those lands you are turned again to the Lord your God, searching for him with all your heart and soul, he will not keep himself from you.
30 When you are in trouble and all these things have come on you, if, in the future, you are turned again to the Lord your God, and give ear to his voice :
31 Because the Lord your God is a God of mercy, he will not take away his help from you or let destruction overtake you, or be false to the agreement which he made by an oath with your fathers.
4:32 Give thought now to the days which are past, before your time, from the day when God first gave life to man on the earth, and searching from one end of heaven to the other, see if such a great thing as this has ever been, or if anything like it has been talked of in story.
33 Has any people ever gone on living after hearing the voice of God out of the heart of the fire as you did ?
34 Has God ever before taken a nation for himself from out of another nation, by punishments and signs and wonders, by war and by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm and great acts of wonder and fear, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes ?
35 All this he let you see, so that you might be certain that the Lord is God and there is no other.
36 Out of heaven itself his voice came to you, teaching you ; and on earth he let you see his great fire ; and his words came to your ears out of the heart of the fire.
37 And because of his love for your fathers, he took their seed and made it his, and he himself, present among you, took you out of Egypt by his great power ;
38 Driving out before you nations greater and stronger than you, to take you into their land and give it to you for your heritage, as at this day.
39 So today be certain, and keep the knowledge deep in your hearts, that the Lord is God, in heaven on high and here on earth ; there is no other God.
40 Then keep his laws and his orders which I give you today, so that it may be well for you and for your children after you, and that your lives may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for ever.
41 Then Moses had three towns marked out on the far side of Jordan looking to the east ;
42 To which anyone causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate, might go in flight ; so that in one of these towns he might be kept from death :
43 The names of the towns were Bezer in the waste land, in the table-land, for the Reubenites ; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites ; and Golan in Bashan for Manasseh.
4:44 This is the law which Moses put before the children of Israel:
45 These are the rules and the laws and the decisions which Moses gave to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt ;
46 On the far side of Jordan, in the valley facing Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel overcame after they had come out of Egypt :
47 And they took his land for a heritage, and the land of Og, king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, whose lands were on the other side of Jordan to the east ;
48 From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon as far as Mount Sion, which is Hermon,
49 And all the Arabah on the far side of Jordan to the east, as far as the sea of the Arabah under the slopes of Pisgah.
DEUTERONOMY, 5
The ten commandments
5:1 And Moses sent for all Israel, and said to them, Give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I give you today, and give attention to them so that you may keep and do them.
2 The Lord our God made an agreement with us in Horeb.
3 The Lord did not make this agreement with our fathers but with us, who are all living and present here today.
4 The word of the Lord came to you face to face on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire,
5 (I was between the Lord and you at that time, to make clear to you the word of the Lord : because, through fear of the fire, you did not go up the mountain;) saying,
5:6 I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.
5:7 You are to have no other gods but me.
5:8 You may not make for yourselves an image in the form of anything in heaven or on earth or in the waters under the earth :
9 You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship : for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another ; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters ;
10 And I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws.
5:11 You are not to make use of the name of the Lord your God for an evil purpose ; whoever takes the Lord's name on his lips for an evil purpose will be judged as a sinner by the Lord.
5:12 Keep the Sabbath day as a holy day, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God.
13 On six days do all your work :
14 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on that day do no work, you or your son or your daughter, or your man-servant or your woman-servant, or your ox or your ass or any of your cattle, or the man from a strange country who is living among you ; so that your man-servant and your woman-servant may have rest as well as you
15 And keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God took you out of that land by his strong hand and his stretched-out arm : for this reason the Lord has given you orders to keep the Sabbath day.
5:16 Give honour to your father and your mother, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God ; so that your life may be long and all may be well for you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
5:17 Do not put anyone to death without cause.
5:18 Do not be false to the married relation.
5:19 Do not take the property of another.
5:20 Do not give false witness against your neighbour ;
5:21 Or let your desire be turned to your neighbour's wife, or his house or his field or his man-servant or his woman-servant or his ox or his ass or anything which is your neighbour's.
22 These words the Lord said to all of you together on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire, out of the cloud and the dark, with a great voice : and he said no more; he put them in writing on the two stones of the law and gave them to me.
5:23 And after hearing the voice which came out of the dark while the mountain was burning with fire, all the heads of your tribes and your chiefs came to me,
24 And said, The Lord has let us see his glory and his power, and his voice has come to us out of the fire: today we have seen that a man may go on living even after hearing the voice of God.
25 Why then is death to be our fate ? For if the voice of the Lord our God comes to us any more, death will overtake us, and we will be burned up in this great fire.
26 For what man is there in all the earth, who, hearing the voice of the living God as we have, out of the heart of the fire, has been kept from death ?
27 Do you go near : and after hearing everything which the Lord our God has to say, give us an account of all he has said to you, and we will give ear, and do it.
5:28 Then the Lord, hearing your words to me, said to me, The words which this people have said to you have come to my ears : what they have said is well said.
29 If only they had such a heart in them at all times, so that they might go in fear of me and keep my orders and that it might be well for them and for their children for ever !
30 Now say to them, Go back to your tents.
31 But as for you, keep your place here by me, and I will give you all the orders and the laws and the decisions which you are to make clear to them, so that they may do them in the land which I am giving them for their heritage.
32 Take care, then, to do whatever the Lord your God has given you orders to do; let there be no turning away to the right hand or to the left.
5:33 Go on walking in the way ordered for you by the Lord your God, so that life may be yours and it may be well for you, and your days may be long in the land of your heritage.
DEUTERONOMY, 6
The great commandment
6:1 Now these are the orders and the laws and the decisions which the Lord your God gave me for your teaching, so that you might do them in the land of your heritage to which you are going :
2 So that living in the fear of the Lord your God, you may keep all his laws and his orders, which I give you : you and your son and your son's son, all the days of your life ; and so that your life may be long.
3 So give ear, O Israel, and take care to do this ; so that it may be well for you, and you may be greatly increased, as the Lord the God of your fathers has given you his word, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
6:4 Give ear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one Lord :
5 And the Lord your God is to be loved with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
6 Keep these words, which I say to you this day, deep in your hearts ;
7 Teaching them to your children with all care, talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up.
8 Let them be fixed as a sign on your hand, and marked on your brow ;
9 Have them lettered on the pillars of your houses and over the doors of your towns.
6:10 And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land which he gave his oath to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you ; with great and fair towns which were not of your building ;
11 And houses full of good things not stored up by you, and places for storing water which you did not make, and vine-gardens and olive-trees not of your planting ; and you have taken food and are full ;
12 Then take care that you keep your hearts true to the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.
13 Let the fear of the Lord your God be in your hearts, and be his servants, taking your oaths by his name.
14 Do not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about you ;
15 For the Lord your God who is with you is a God who will not let his honour be given to another ; or the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, causing your destruction from the face of the earth.
6:16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did in Massah.
17 Keep with care the orders of the Lord your God, and his rules and his laws which he has given you ;
18 And do what is upright and good in the eyes of the Lord your God, so that it may be well for you and you may go in and take for your heritage that good land from which the Lord undertook by an oath to your fathers,
19 To send out from before you all those who are against you.
6:20 And when your son says to you in time to come, What is the reason for these rules and laws and decisions which the Lord our God has given you ?
21 Then you will say to your son, We were servants under Pharaoh's yoke in Egypt ; and the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand:
22 And the Lord did great signs and wonders against Egypt, and against Pharaoh and all his house, before our eyes :
23 And he took us out from that place, guiding us here to give us this land, as he said in his oath to our fathers.
24 And the Lord gave us orders to keep all these laws, in the fear of the Lord our God, so that it might be well for us for ever, and that he might keep us from death, as he has done to this day.
25 And it will be our righteousness if we take care to keep all this order before the Lord our God as he has given it to us.
DEUTERONOMY, 7
A people holy to the Lord
7:1 When the Lord your God takes you into the land where you are going, which is to be your heritage, and has sent out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you ;
2 And when the Lord has given them up into your hands and you have overcome them, give them up to complete destruction: make no agreement with them, and have no mercy on them:
3 Do not take wives or husbands from among them; do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons.
4 For through them your sons will be turned from me to the worship of other gods: and the Lord will be moved to wrath against you and send destruction on you quickly.
5 But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire.
7:6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God: marked out by the Lord your God to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.
7 The Lord did not give you his love or take you for himself because you were more in number than any other people; for you were the smallest of the nations :
8 But because of his love for you, and in order to keep his oath to your fathers, the Lord took you out with the strength of his hand, making you free from the prison-house and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
9 Be certain, then, that the Lord your God is God; whose faith and mercy are unchanging, who keeps his word through a thousand generations to those who have love for him and keep his laws ;
10 Rewarding his haters to their face with destruction; he will have no mercy on his hater, but will give him open punishment.
11 So keep the orders and the laws and the decisions which I give you today and do them.
7:12 And it will be, that if you give attention to these decisions and keep and do them, then the Lord will keep his agreement with you and his mercy, as he said in his oath to your fathers.
13 And he will give you his love, blessing you and increasing you : he will send his blessing on the offspring of your body and the fruit of your land, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which by his oath to your fathers he undertook to give you.
14 You will have greater blessings than any other people : no male or female among you or among your cattle will be without offspring.
15 And the Lord will take away from you all disease, and will not put on you any of the evil diseases of Egypt which you have seen, but will put them on your haters.
16 And you are to send destruction on all the peoples which the Lord your God gives into your hands ; have no pity on them, and do not give worship to their gods ; for that will be a cause of sin to you.
7:17 If you say in your hearts, These nations are greater in number than we are : how are we to take their land from them ?
18 Have no fear of them, but keep well in mind what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt;
19 The great punishments which your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders and the strong hand and the stretched-out arm, by which the Lord your God took you out: so will the Lord your God do to all the peoples who are the cause of your fears.
20 And the Lord will send a hornet among them, till all the rest who have kept themselves safe from you in secret places have been cut off.
21 Have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, a great God greatly to be feared.
22 The Lord your God will send out the nations before you little by little; they are not to be rooted out quickly, for fear that the beasts of the field may be increased overmuch against you.
23 But the Lord your God will give them up into your hands, overpowering them till their destruction is complete.
24 He will give their kings into your hands, and you will put their names out of existence under heaven ; there is not one of them who will not give way before you, till their destruction is complete.
25 The images of their gods are to be burned with fire : have no desire for the gold and silver on them, and do not take it for yourselves, for it will be a danger to you: it is a thing disgusting to the Lord your God:
26 And you may not take a disgusting thing into your house, and so become cursed with its curse: but keep yourselves from it, turning from it with fear and hate, for it is a cursed thing.
DEUTERONOMY, 8
A good land
8:1 Take care to keep all the orders which I give you today, so that you may have life and be increased and go in and take as a heritage the land which the Lord, by his oath to your fathers, undertook to give you.
2 And keep in mind the way by which the Lord your God has taken you through the waste land these forty years, so that he might make low your pride and put you to the test, to see what was in your heart and if you would keep his orders or not.
3 And he made low your pride and let you be without food and gave you manna for your food, a thing new to you, which your fathers never saw; so that he might make it clear to you that bread is not man's only need, but his life is in every word which comes out of the mouth of the Lord.
4 Through all these forty years your clothing did not get old or your feet become tired.
5 Keep in mind this thought, that as a son is trained by his father, so you have been trained by the Lord your God.
6 Then keep the orders of the Lord your God, fearing him and walking in his ways.
7 For the Lord your God is guiding you into a good land, a land of water-springs, of fountains, and deep streams flowing out from the valleys and the hills ;
8 A land of grain and vines and fig-trees and fair fruits; a land of oil-giving olive-trees and honey ;
9 Where there will be bread for you in full measure and you will be in need of nothing; a land where the very stones are iron and from whose hills you may get copper.
10 And you will have food enough and be full, praising the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
8:11 Then take care that you are not turned away from the Lord your God and from keeping his orders and decisions and laws which I give you this day :
12 And when you have taken food and are full, and have made fair houses for yourselves and are living in them;
13 And when your herds and your flocks are increased, and your stores of silver and gold, and you have wealth of every sort ;
14 Take care that your hearts are not lifted up in pride, giving no thought to the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house ;
15 Who was your guide through that great and cruel waste, where there were poison-snakes and scorpions and a dry land without water ; who made water come out of the hard rock for you;
16 Who gave you manna for your food in the waste land, a food which your fathers had never seen; so that your pride might be broken and your hearts tested for your good in the end ;
17 Say not then, in your hearts, My power and the strength of my hands have got me this wealth.
18 But keep in mind the Lord your God : for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, so that he may give effect to the agreement which he made by his oath with your fathers, as at this day.
19 And it is certain that if at any time you are turned away from the Lord your God, and go after other gods, to be their servants and to give them worship, destruction will overtake you.
20 Like the nations which the Lord is cutting off before you, so you will be cut off ; because you would not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God.
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