Deuteronomy 11–12

Deuteronomy 11–12 WEB

^11:1Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep his instructions, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments, always. ²Know 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, his outstretched arm, ³his signs, and his works, which he did in the middle of 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 to overflow them as they pursued 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, the 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 middle of all Israel; ⁷but your eyes have seen all of the LORD’s great work which he did. ⁸Therefore you shall keep the entire commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land that you go over to possess; ⁹and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰For the land, where you go in to possess isn’t like the land of Egypt that you came out of, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot, as a garden of herbs; ¹¹but the land that you go over to possess is a land of hills and valleys which drinks water from the rain of the sky, ¹²a land which the LORD your God cares for. The LORD your God’s eyes are always on it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year. ¹³It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to my commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴that I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. ¹⁵I will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. ¹⁶Be careful, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn away to serve other gods and worship them; ¹⁷and the LORD’s anger be kindled against you, and he shut up the sky so that there is no rain, and the land doesn’t yield its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD gives you. ¹⁸Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul. You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ²⁰You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates; ²¹that your days and your children’s days may be multiplied in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens above the earth. ²²For if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you—to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cling to him— ²³then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves. ²⁴Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the western sea shall be your border. ²⁵No man will be able to stand before you. The LORD your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you tread on, as he has spoken to you. ²⁶Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today; ²⁸and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn away out of the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. ²⁹It shall happen, when the LORD your God brings you into the land that you go to possess, that you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim, and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰Aren’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 near Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh? ³¹For 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 in it. ³²You shall observe to do all the statutes and the ordinances which I set before you today.

^12:1These are the statutes and the ordinances which you shall observe to do in the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. ²You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree. ³You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place. ⁴You shall not do so to the LORD your God. ⁵But to the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, you shall seek his habitation, and you shall come there. ⁶You shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, your vows, your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock there. ⁷There you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you. ⁸You shall not do all the things that we do here today, every man whatever is right in his own eyes; ⁹for you haven’t yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the LORD your God gives you. ¹⁰But when you go over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the LORD your God causes you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you, so that you dwell in safety, ¹¹then it shall happen that to the place which the LORD your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to the LORD. ¹²You shall rejoice before the LORD your God—you, and your sons, your daughters, your male servants, your female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you. ¹³Be careful that you don’t offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; ¹⁴but in the place which the LORD chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you. ¹⁵Yet you may kill and eat meat within all your gates, after all the desire of your soul, according to the LORD your God’s blessing which he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the deer. ¹⁶Only you shall not eat the blood. You shall pour it out on the earth like water. ¹⁷You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, or of your new wine, or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, nor any of your vows which you vow, nor your free will offerings, nor the wave offering of your hand; ¹⁸but you shall eat them before the LORD your God in the place which the LORD your God shall choose: you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates. You shall rejoice before the LORD your God in all that you put your hand to. ¹⁹Be careful that you don’t forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land. ²⁰When the LORD your God enlarges your border, as he has promised you, and you say, “I want to eat meat,” because your soul desires to eat meat, you may eat meat, after all the desire of your soul. ²¹If the place which the LORD your God shall choose to put his name is too far from you, then you shall kill of your herd and of your flock, which the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates, after all the desire of your soul. ²²Even as the gazelle and as the deer is eaten, so you shall eat of it. The unclean and the clean may eat of it alike. ²³Only be sure that you don’t eat the blood; for the blood is the life. You shall not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴You shall not eat it. You shall pour it out on the earth like water. ²⁵You shall not eat it, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do that which is right in the LORD’s eyes. ²⁶Only your holy things which you have, and your vows, you shall take and go to the place which the LORD shall choose. ²⁷You shall offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the LORD your God’s altar. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the LORD your God’s altar, and you shall eat the meat. ²⁸Observe and hear all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do that which is good and right in the LORD your God’s eyes. ²⁹When the LORD your God cuts off the nations from before you where you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, ³⁰be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you not inquire after their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.” ³¹You shall not do so to the LORD your God; for every abomination to the LORD, which he hates, they have done to their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. ³²Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.