19The LORD spoke those words—those and no more—to your whole congregation at the mountain, with a mighty voice out of the fire and the dense clouds. He inscribed them on two tablets of stone, which He gave to me. 20When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, you came up to me, all your tribal heads and elders, 21and said, “The LORD our God has just shown us His majestic Presence, and we have heard His voice out of the fire; we have seen this day that man may live though God has spoken to him. 22Let us not die, then, for this fearsome fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer, we shall die. 23For what mortal ever heard the voice of the living God speak out of the fire, as we did, and lived? 24You go closer and hear all that the LORD our God says, and then you tell us everything that the LORD our God tells you, and we will willingly do it.”
25The LORD heard the plea that you made to me, and the LORD said to me, “I have heard the plea that this people made to you; they did well to speak thus. 26May they always be of such mind, to revere Me and follow all My commandments, that it may go well with them and with their children forever! 27Go, say to them, ‘Return to your tents.’ 28But you remain here with Me, and I will give you the whole Instruction— the laws and the rules—that you shall impart to them, for them to observe in the land that I am giving them to possess.”
29Be careful, then, to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left: 30follow only the path that the LORD your God has enjoined upon you, so that you may thrive and that it may go well with you, and that you may long endure in the land you are to possess.
6 And this is the Instruction—the laws and the rules—that the LORD your God has commanded [me] to impart to you, to be observed in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, 2so that you, your children, and your children’s children may revere the LORD your God and follow, as long as you live, all His laws and commandments that I enjoin upon you, to the end that you may long endure. 3Obey, O Israel, willingly and faithfully, that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly [in] a-a land flowing with milk and honey,-a as the LORD, the God of your fathers, spoke to you.
4Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.b 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. 7Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbolc on your forehead;d 9inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10When the LORD your God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to assign to you—great and flourishing cities that you did not build, 11houses full of all good things that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and you eat your fill, 12take heed that you do not forget the LORD who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. 13Revere only the LORD your God and worship Him alone, and swear only by His name. 14Do not follow other gods, any gods of the peoples about you 15—for the LORD your God in your midst is an impassioned God—lest the anger of the LORD your God blaze forth against you and He wipe you off the face of the earth.
16Do not try the LORD your God, as you did at Massah.e 17Be sure to keep the commandments, decrees, and laws that the LORD your God has enjoined upon you. 18Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may go well with you and that you may be able to possess the good land that the LORD your God promised on oath to your fathers, 19and that all your enemies may be driven out before you, as the LORD has spoken.
20When, in time to come, your children ask you, “What mean the decrees, laws, and rules that the LORD our God has enjoined upon you?”f 21you shall say to your children, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the LORD freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand. 22The LORD wrought before our eyes marvelous and destructive signs and portents in Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household; 23and us He freed from there, that He might take us and give us the land that He had promised on oath to our fathers. 24Then the LORD commanded us to observe all these laws, to revere the LORD our God, for our lasting good and for our survival, as is now the case. 25It will be therefore to our merit before the LORD our God to observe faithfully this whole Instruction, as He has commanded us.”
7 When the LORD your God brings you to the land that you are about to enter and possess, and He dislodges many nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations much larger than you—2and the LORD your God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom them to destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter. 3You shall not intermarry with them: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. 4For they will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods, and the LORD’s anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out. 5Instead, this is what you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred posts, and consign their images to the fire.
6For you are a people consecrated to the LORD your God: of all the peoples on earth the LORD your God chose you to be His treasured people. 7It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that the LORD set His heart on you and chose you—indeed, you are the smallest of peoples; 8but it was because the LORD favored you and kept the oath He made to your fathers that the LORD freed you with a mighty hand and rescued you from the house of bondage, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9Know, therefore, that only the LORD your God is God, the steadfast God who keeps His covenant faithfully to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments, 10but who instantly requites with destruction those who reject Him—never slow with those who reject Him, but requiting them instantly. 11Therefore, observe faithfully the Instruction—the laws and the rules—with which I charge you today.
12And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the LORD your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers: 13He will favor you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the issue of your womb and the produce of your soil, your new grain and wine and oil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to assign to you. 14You shall be blessed above all other peoples: there shall be no sterile male or female among you or among your livestock. 15The LORD will ward off from you all sickness; He will not bring upon you any of the dreadful diseases of Egypt, about which you know, but will inflict them upon all your enemies.
16You shall destroy all the peoples that the LORD your God delivers to you, showing them no pity. And you shall not worship their gods, for that would be a snare to you. 17Should you say to yourselves, “These nations are more numerous than we; how can we dispossess them?” 18You need have no fear of them. You have but to bear in mind what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all the Egyptians: 19the wondrous acts that you saw with your own eyes, the signs and the portents, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm by which the LORD your God liberated you. Thus will the LORD your God do to all the peoples you now fear. 20The LORD your God will also send a plaguea against them, until those who are left in hiding perish before you. 21Do not stand in dread of them, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.
22The LORD your God will dislodge those peoples before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them
