DEUTERONOMY - Chapter 9

"Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, 'Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?' Therefore understand today that YAHWEH your Elohim is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as YAHWEH has said to you.

"Do not think in your heart, after YAHWEH your Elohim has cast them out before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness YAHWEH has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that YAHWEH is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that YAHWEH your Elohim drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which YAHWEH swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

"Therefore understand that YAHWEH your Elohim is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.

"Remember! Do not forget how you provoked YAHWEH your Elohim to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against YAHWEH. Also in Horeb you provoked YAHWEH to wrath, so that YAHWEH was angry enough with you to have destroyed you.

"When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which YAHWEH made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. Then YAHWEH delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of Elohim, and on them were all the words which YAHWEH had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that YAHWEH gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

"Then YAHWEH said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image.'

"Furthermore YAHWEH spoke to me, saying, 'I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people. Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.'

"So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against YAHWEH your Elohim—had made for yourselves a molten calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which YAHWEH had commanded you. Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.

"And I fell down before YAHWEH, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of YAHWEH, to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which YAHWEH was angry with you, to destroy you. But YAHWEH listened to me at that time also. And YAHWEH was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

"Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.

"Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked YAHWEH to wrath. Likewise, when YAHWEH sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, 'Go up and possess the land which I have given you,' then you rebelled against the commandment of YAHWEH your Elohim, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice.

"You have been rebellious against YAHWEH from the day that I knew you.

"Thus I prostrated myself before YAHWEH; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because YAHWEH had said He would destroy you. Therefore I prayed to YAHWEH, and said: 'O Master YAHWEH, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin, lest the land from which You brought us should say, "Because YAHWEH was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness." Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.' 

Chapter 10

"At that time YAHWEH said to me, 'Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.'

"So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which YAHWEH had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and YAHWEH gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, just as YAHWEH commanded me."

(Now the children of Israel journeyed from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah, where Aaron died, and where he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered as priest in his stead. From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of water. At that time YAHWEH separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of YAHWEH, to stand before YAHWEH, to minister to Him and to bless in His name, to this day. Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; YAHWEH is his inheritance, just as YAHWEH your Elohim promised him.)

"As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; YAHWEH also heard me at that time, and YAHWEH chose not to destroy you. Then YAHWEH said to me, 'Arise, begin your journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.'

"And now, Israel, what does YAHWEH your Elohim require of you, but to fear YAHWEH your Elohim, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve YAHWEH your Elohim with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of YAHWEH and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to YAHWEH your Elohim, also the earth with all that is in it.

"YAHWEH delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

"For YAHWEH our Elohim is Elohim of elohims and Master of masters, the great Elohim, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

"You shall fear YAHWEH your Elohim; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. He is your praise, and He is your Elohim, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now YAHWEH your Elohim has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude."

Chapter 11

"Therefore you shall love YAHWEH your Elohim, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always.

"Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of YAHWEH your Elohim, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm—His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: how He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how YAHWEH has destroyed them to this day; what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; 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, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel—but your eyes have seen every great act of YAHWEH which He did.

"Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, and that you may prolong your days in the land which YAHWEH swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, 'a land flowing with milk and honey.'

"For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which YAHWEH your Elohim cares; the eyes of YAHWEH your Elohim are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

"'And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love YAHWEH your Elohim and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you 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. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.'

"Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, lest YAHWEH's anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which YAHWEH is giving you.

"Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which YAHWEH swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.

"For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love YAHWEH your Elohim, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him—then YAHWEH will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. Every 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 territory. No man shall be able to stand against you; YAHWEH your Elohim will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.

"Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of YAHWEH your Elohim which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of YAHWEH your Elohim, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.

"Now it shall be, when YAHWEH your Elohim has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh? For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess the land which YAHWEH your Elohim is giving you, and you will possess it and dwell in it. And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which I set before you today.

HalleluYah!