Deuteronomy 11

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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Love the LORD your God

¹So love the LORD your God, and always keep his requirements, his statutes, his rulings, and his commandments. ²Recognize today — for it is not your children I am speaking to, who have neither known nor seen it — the discipline of the LORD your God: his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, ³his signs and the deeds he did in Egypt to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole land, ⁴what he did to the Egyptian army, its horses and its chariots, how he made the waters of the Red Sea flow over them as they chased you, and the LORD destroyed them, and they are gone to this day, ⁵what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place, ⁶and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that belonged to them, ⁷for it is your own eyes that have seen all the great work that the LORD has done. ⁸So keep the whole commandment that I am giving you today, so that you may have strength to go in and take possession of the land you are crossing over to possess, ⁹and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your ancestors to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

A land that drinks in the rain

¹⁰For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt that you came out of, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, like a vegetable garden. ¹¹But the land you are crossing over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks in water from the rain of the sky, ¹²a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are on it always, from the beginning of the year to its end.

¹³If you truly obey my commandments that I am giving you today, loving the LORD your God and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴then I will give your land its rain at the right time, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and you will gather in your grain, your new wine, and your olive oil. ¹⁵I will provide grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat and be full. ¹⁶Be careful that your hearts are not led astray, so that you turn away and serve other gods and bow down to them, ¹⁷and the anger of the LORD blaze against you. Then he will shut up the sky so that there is no rain and the ground yields no crops, and you will quickly be wiped out from the good land that the LORD is giving you. ¹⁸Fix these words of mine in your heart and in your soul. Tie them as a sign on your hand, and let them be a band between your eyes. ¹⁹Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹so that you and your children may live long in the land the LORD swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the sky remains above the earth.

²²For if you carefully keep this whole commandment that I am giving you to follow, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, ²³then the LORD will drive out all these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess nations greater and stronger than you are. ²⁴Every place where you set foot will be yours. Your territory will reach from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the River, the Euphrates, to the western sea. ²⁵No one will be able to stand against you. The LORD your God will put the dread and fear of you on the whole land where you set foot, as he promised you.

A blessing and a curse

²⁶See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷the blessing if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am giving you today, ²⁸and the curse if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way I am commanding you today and follow other gods that you have not known.

²⁹When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰Are they not across the Jordan, beyond the road toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, facing Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh? ³¹For you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving you. When you have taken possession of it and are living in it, ³²be careful to carry out all the statutes and rulings that I am setting before you today.