Deuteronomy 8-13

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

8 All the commandments which I command you this day you shall be watchful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

² And you shall [earnestly] remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to prove you, to know what was in your [mind and] heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

³ And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you recognize and personally know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

⁴ Your clothing did not become old upon you nor did your feet swell these forty years.

⁵ Know also in your [minds and] hearts that, as a man disciplines and instructs his son, so the Lord your God disciplines and instructs you.

⁶ So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and [reverently] fear Him.^(A)

⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;

⁸ A land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey;

⁹ A land in which you shall eat food without shortage and lack nothing in it; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for all the good land which He has given you.

¹¹ Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His precepts, and His statutes which I command you today,

¹² Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them,

¹³ And when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all you have is multiplied,

¹⁴ Then your [minds and] hearts be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,

¹⁵ Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, but Who brought you forth water out of the flinty rock,

¹⁶ Who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.

¹⁷ And beware lest you say in your [mind and] heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.

¹⁸ But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

¹⁹ And if you forget the Lord your God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.

²⁰ Like the nations which the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

9 Hear, O Israel. You are to cross the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you are, cities great and fortified up to the heavens,

² A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of Anak?

³ Know therefore this day that the Lord your God is He Who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall dispossess them and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

⁴ Do not say in your [mind and] heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out from before you, It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land—whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.

⁵ Not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your [minds and] hearts do you go to possess their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out before you, and that He may fulfill the promise which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⁶ Know therefore that the Lord your God does not give you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a hard and stubborn people.

⁷ [Earnestly] remember and forget not how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

⁸ Even in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you.

⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food nor drank water.

¹⁰ And the Lord delivered to me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

¹¹ And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant.

¹² And the Lord said to me, Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten image.

¹³ Furthermore the Lord said to me, I have seen this people, and behold, they are stubborn and hard.

¹⁴ Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.

¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.

¹⁶ And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.

¹⁷ I took the two tables, cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.

¹⁸ Then I fell down before the Lord as before, for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.

¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the Lord held against you, enough to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.

²⁰ And the Lord was very angry with Aaron, angry enough to have destroyed him, and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

²¹ And I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I cast the dust of it into the brook that came down out of the mountain.

²² At Taberah also and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath.

²³ Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you, then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him or trust and rely on Him or obey His voice.

²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

²⁵ So I fell down and lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights because the Lord had said He would destroy you.

²⁶ And I prayed to the Lord, O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and Your heritage, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

²⁷ Remember [earnestly] Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not at the stubbornness of this people or at their wickedness or at their sin,

²⁸ Lest the land from which You brought us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

²⁹ Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.

10 At that time the Lord said to me, Hew two tables of stone like the first and come up to Me on the mountain and make an ark of wood.

² And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.

³ So I [Moses] made an ark of acacia wood and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up the mountain ^[a]with the two tables of stone in my [one] hand.

⁴ And the Lord wrote on the tables as at the first writing, the Ten Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me.

⁵ And I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.

⁶ (The Israelites journeyed from the wells of the sons of Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried, and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead.

⁷ From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and then to Jotbathah, a land of brooks [dividing the valley].

⁸ At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to Him and to bless in His name unto this day.

⁹ Therefore Levi has no part or inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God promised him.)

¹⁰ And I [Moses] stayed on the mountain, as the first time, forty days and nights, and the Lord listened to me at that time also; the Lord would not destroy you.

¹¹ And the Lord said to me, Arise, journey on before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.

¹² And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but [reverently] to fear the Lord your God, [that is] to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being,

¹³ To keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?

¹⁴ Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth also, with all that is in it and on it.

¹⁵ Yet the Lord had a delight in loving your fathers, and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.

¹⁶ So circumcise the foreskin of your [minds and] hearts; be no longer stubborn and hardened.

¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the terrible God, Who is not partial and takes no bribe.

¹⁸ He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger or temporary resident and gives him food and clothing.

¹⁹ Therefore love the stranger and sojourner, for you were strangers and sojourners in the land of Egypt.

²⁰ You shall [reverently] fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and by His name and presence you shall swear.

²¹ He is your praise; He is your God, Who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen.

²² Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of the heavens for multitude.

11 Therefore you shall love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His precepts, and His commandments always.

² And know this day—for I am not speaking to your children who have not [personally] known and seen it—the instruction and discipline of the Lord your God: His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm;

³ His signs and His deeds which He did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land;

⁴ And what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and chariots, how He made the waters of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day;

⁵ And what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place;

⁶ And what He did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel.^(B)

⁷ For your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which He did.

⁸ Therefore you shall keep all the commandments which I command you today, that you may be strong and go in and possess the land which you go across [the Jordan] to possess,

⁹ And that you may live long in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰ For the land which you go in to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you came out, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot laboriously as in a garden of vegetables.

¹¹ But the land which you enter to possess is a land of hills and valleys which drinks water of the rain of the heavens,

¹² A land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³ And if you will diligently heed My commandments which I command you this day—to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being—

¹⁴ 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.

¹⁵ And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, that you may eat and be full.

¹⁶ Take heed to yourselves, lest your [minds and] hearts be deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them,

¹⁷ And the Lord’s anger be kindled against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the land will not yield its fruit, and you perish quickly off the good land which the Lord gives you.

¹⁸ Therefore you shall lay up these My words in your [minds and] hearts and in your [entire] being, and bind them for a sign upon your hands and as forehead bands between your eyes.

¹⁹ And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you rise up.

²⁰ And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates,

²¹ That your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

²² For if you diligently keep all this commandment which I command you to do, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to cleave to Him—

²³ Then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.

²⁴ Every place upon which the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea [the Mediterranean] your territory shall be.

²⁵ There shall no man be able to stand before you; the Lord your God shall lay the fear and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread, as He has said to you.

²⁶ Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse—

²⁷ The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day;

²⁸ And the curse if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day to go after other gods, which you have not known.

²⁹ And when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.^(C)

³⁰ Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, where the sun goes down, in the land of the Canaanites living in the Arabah opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks or terebinths of Moreh?

³¹ For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you shall possess it and live in it.

³² And you shall be watchful to do all the statutes and ordinances which I set before you this day.

12 These are the statutes and ordinances which you shall be watchful to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you to possess all the days you live on the earth.

² You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains and the hills and under every green tree.

³ You shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.

⁴ You shall not behave so toward the Lord your God.

⁵ But you shall seek the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His ^[b]Name and make His dwelling place, and there shall you come;

⁶ And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering of your hands, and your vows and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock.

⁷ And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸ You ^[c]shall not do according to all we do here [in the camp] this day, every man doing whatever looks right in his own eyes.

⁹ For you have not yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you.

¹⁰ But 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 round about so that you dwell in safety,

¹¹ Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His Name [and His Presence] to dwell there; to it you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes and what the hand presents [as a first gift from the fruits of the ground], and all your choicest offerings which you vow to the Lord.

¹² And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no part or inheritance with you.

¹³ Be watchful not to offer your burnt offerings in every place you see.

¹⁴ But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all I command you.

¹⁵ However, you may kill and eat flesh in any of your towns whenever you desire, according to the provision for the support of life with which the Lord your God has blessed you; those [ceremonially] unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the hart.

¹⁶ Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it upon the ground as water.

¹⁷ You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your new wine or of your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or flock, or anything you have vowed, or your freewill offerings, or the offerings from your hand [of garden products].

¹⁸ But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and the Levite that is within your towns; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake.

¹⁹ Take heed not to forsake or neglect the Levite [God’s minister] as long as you live in your land.

²⁰ When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He promised you, and you say, I will eat flesh, because you crave flesh, you may eat flesh whenever you desire.

²¹ If the place where the Lord your God has chosen to put His Name [and Presence] is too far from you, then you shall kill from your herd or flock which the Lord has given you, as I [Moses] have commanded you; eat in your towns as much as you desire.

²² Just as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so you may eat of it [but not offer it]; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it.

²³ Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you may not eat the life with the flesh.

²⁴ You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.

²⁵ You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

²⁶ Only your holy things which you have [to offer] and what you have vowed you shall take, and go to the place [before the sanctuary] which the Lord shall choose.

²⁷ And offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you may eat the flesh.

²⁸ Be watchful and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

²⁹ When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go to dispossess, and you dispossess them and live in their land,

³⁰ Be watchful that you are not ensnared into following them after they have been destroyed before you and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? We will do likewise.

³¹ You shall not do so to the Lord your God, for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods. For even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods.

³² Whatever I command you, be watchful to do it; you shall not add to it or diminish it.

13 If a prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder,

² And the sign or the wonder he foretells to you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods—gods you have not known—and let us serve them,

³ You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being.

⁴ You shall walk after the Lord your God and [reverently] fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and cling to Him.

⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has talked rebellion and turning away from the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage; that man has tried to draw you aside from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So shall you put the evil away from your midst.

⁶ If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own life entices you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods—gods you have not known, you nor your fathers,

⁷ Of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other—

⁸ You shall not give consent to him or listen to him; nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him.

⁹ But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people.

¹⁰ And you shall stone him to death with stones, because he has tried to draw you away from the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

¹¹ And all Israel shall hear and [reverently] fear, and shall never again do any such wickedness as this among you.

¹² If you hear it said in one of your cities which the Lord your God has given you in which to dwell

¹³ That certain base fellows have gone out from your midst and have enticed away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods—gods you have not known—

¹⁴ Then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done among you,

¹⁵ You shall surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly and all who are in it and its beasts with the edge of the sword.

¹⁶ And you shall collect all its spoil into the midst of its open square and shall burn the city with fire with every bit of its spoil [as a whole burnt offering] to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap [of ruins] forever; it shall not be built again.

¹⁷ And nothing of the accursed thing shall cling to your hand, so that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger, and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as He swore to your fathers,

¹⁸ If you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep all His commandments which I command you this day, to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.