Deuteronomy - The Old Testament

¹ 'You must keep and put into practice all the commandments which I enjoin on you today, so that you may survive and increase in numbers and enter the country which Yahweh promised on oath to your ancestors, and make it your own.

² Remember the long road by which Yahweh your God led you for forty years in the desert, to humble you, to test you and know your inmost heart -- whether you would keep his commandments or not.

³ He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that human beings live not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of Yahweh.

⁴ The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet were not swollen, all those forty years.

⁵ 'Learn from this that Yahweh your God was training you as a man trains his child,

⁶ and keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and so follow his ways and fear him.

⁷ 'But Yahweh your God is bringing you into a fine country, a land of streams and springs, of waters that well up from the deep in valleys and hills,

⁸ a land of wheat and barley, of vines, of figs, of pomegranates, a land of olives, of oil, of honey,

⁹ a land where you will eat bread without stint, where you will want nothing, a land where the stones are iron and where the hills may be quarried for copper.

¹⁰ You will eat and have all you want and you will bless Yahweh your God in the fine country which he has given you.

¹¹ 'Be careful not to forget Yahweh your God, by neglecting his commandments, customs and laws which I am laying down for you today.

¹² When you have eaten all you want, when you have built fine houses to live in,

¹³ when you have seen your flocks and herds increase, your silver and gold abound and all your possessions grow great,

¹⁴ do not become proud of heart. Do not then forget Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the place of slave-labour,

¹⁵ who guided you through this vast and dreadful desert, a land of fiery snakes, scorpions, thirst;

¹⁶ who in this waterless place brought you water out of the flinty rock; who in this desert fed you with manna unknown to your ancestors, to humble you and test you and so make your future the happier.

¹⁷ 'Beware of thinking to yourself, "My own strength and the might of my own hand have given me the power to act like this."

¹⁸ Remember Yahweh your God; he was the one who gave you the strength to act effectively like this, thus keeping then, as today, the covenant which he swore to your ancestors.

¹⁹ Be sure: if you forget Yahweh your God, if you follow other gods, if you serve them and bow down to them -- I testify to you today -- you will perish.

²⁰ Like the nations Yahweh is to destroy before you, so you yourselves will perish, for not having listened to the voice of Yahweh your God.'