【Holy Bible】Message Deuteronomy

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Deuteronomy

Introduction

Deuteronomy is a sermon—actually a series of sermons. It is the longest sermon in the Bible and maybe the longest sermon ever. Deuteronomy presents Moses, standing on the Plains of Moab with all Israel assembled before him, preaching. It is his last sermon. When he completes it, he will leave his pulpit on the plains, climb a mountain, and die.

The setting is stirring and emotion-packed. Moses had entered the biblical story of salvation as a little baby born in Egypt under a death threat. Now, 120 years later, eyesight sharp as ever and walking with "a spring in his step," he preaches this immense sermon and dies, still brimming with words and life.

This sermon does what all sermons are intended to do: Take God's words, written and spoken in the past, take the human experience, ancestral and personal, of the listening congregation, then reproduce the words and experience as a single event right now, in this present moment. No word that God has spoken is a mere literary artifact to be studied; no human experience is dead history merely to be regretted or admired. The continuous and insistent Mosaic repetitions of "today" and "this day" throughout these sermons keep attentions taut and responsive. The complete range of human experience is brought to life and salvation by the full revelation of God: Live this! Now!

The Plains of Moab are the last stop on the forty-year journey from Egyptian slavery to Promised Land freedom. The People of Israel have experienced a lot as a congregation: deliverance, wanderings, rebellions, wars, providence, worship, guidance. The People of Israel have heard a lot from God: commandments, covenant conditions, sacrificial procedures. And now, poised at the River Jordan, ready to cross over and possess the new land, Moses, preaching his great Plains of Moab sermon, makes sure that they don't leave any of it behind, not so much as one detail of their experience or God's revelation: He puts their entire experience of salvation and providence into the present tense (chapters 1–11); he puts the entire revelation of commandment and covenant into the present tense (chapters 12–28); and then he wraps it all up in a charge and a song and a blessing to launch them into today's obedience and believing (chapters 29–34).

"Let's go."

(MSG)

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 Chapter 1
1 These are the sermons Moses preached to all Israel when they were east of the Jordan River in the Arabah Wilderness, opposite Suph, in the vicinity of Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 It takes eleven days to travel from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea following the Mount Seir route.
3 It was on the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year when Moses addressed the People of Israel, telling them everything God had commanded him concerning them. 4 This came after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled from Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who ruled from Ashtaroth in Edrei. 5 It was east of the Jordan in the land of Moab that Moses set out to explain this Revelation. He said: Moses Preaches to Israel on the Plains of Moab
6 Back at Horeb, God, our God, spoke to us: "You've stayed long enough at this mountain. 7 On your way now. Get moving. Head for the Amorite hills, wherever people are living in the Arabah, the mountains, the foothills, the Negev, the seashore—the Canaanite country and the Lebanon all the way to the big river, the Euphrates. 8 Look, I've given you this land. Now go in and take it. It's the land God promised to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their children after them." 9 At the time I told you, "I can't do this, can't carry you all by myself. 10 God, your God, has multiplied your numbers. Why, look at you—you rival the stars in the sky! 11 And may God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, keep it up and multiply you another thousand times, bless you just as he promised. 12 But how can I carry, all by myself, your troubles and burdens and quarrels? 13 So select some wise, understanding, and seasoned men from your tribes, and I will commission them as your leaders." 14 You answered me, "Good! A good solution." 15 So I went ahead and took the top men of your tribes, wise and seasoned, and made them your leaders—leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, officials adequate for each of your tribes. 16 At the same time I gave orders to your judges: "Listen carefully to complaints and accusations between your fellow Israelites. Judge fairly between each person and his fellow or foreigner. 17 Don't play favorites; treat the little and the big alike; listen carefully to each. Don't be impressed by big names. This is God's judgment you're dealing with. Hard cases you can bring to me; I'll deal with them." 18 I issued orders to you at that time regarding everything you would have to deal with. 19 Then we set out from Horeb and headed for the Amorite hill country, going through that huge and frightening wilderness that you've had more than an eyeful of by now—all under the command of God, our God—and finally arrived at Kadesh Barnea. 20 There I told you, "You've made it to the Amorite hill country that God, our God, is giving us. 21 Look, God, your God, has placed this land as a gift before you. Go ahead and take it now. God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, promised it to you. Don't be afraid. Don't lose heart." 22 But then you all came to me and said, "Let's send some men on ahead to scout out the land for us and bring back a report on the best route to take and the kinds of towns we can expect to find." 23 That seemed like a good idea to me, so I picked twelve men, one from each tribe. 24 They set out, climbing through the hills. They came to the Eshcol Valley and looked it over. 25 They took samples of the produce of the land and brought them back to us, saying, "It's a good land that God, our God, is giving us!" 26 But then you weren't willing to go up. You rebelled against God, your God's plain word. 27 You complained in your tents: "God hates us. He hauled us out of Egypt in order to dump us among the Amorites—a death sentence for sure! 28 How can we go up? We're trapped in a dead end. Our brothers took all the wind out of our sails, telling us, 'The people are bigger and stronger than we are; their cities are huge, their defenses massive—we even saw Anakite giants there!' " 29 I tried to relieve your fears: "Don't be terrified of them. 30 God, your God, is leading the way; he's fighting for you. You saw with your own eyes what he did for you in Egypt; 31 you saw what he did in the wilderness, how God, your God, carried you as a father carries his child, carried you the whole way until you arrived here. 32 But now that you're here, you won't trust God, your God— 33 this same God who goes ahead of you in your travels to scout out a place to pitch camp, a fire by night and a cloud by day to show you the way to go." 34 When God heard what you said, he exploded in anger. He swore, 35 "Not a single person of this evil generation is going to get so much as a look at the good land that I promised to give to your parents. Not one— 36 except for Caleb son of Jephunneh. He'll see it. I'll give him and his descendants the land he walked on because he was all for following God, heart and soul." 37 But I also got it. Because of you God's anger spilled over onto me. He said, "You aren't getting in either. 38 Your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will go in. Build up his courage. He's the one who will claim the inheritance for Israel. 39 And your babies of whom you said, 'They'll be grabbed for plunder,' and all these little kids who right now don't even know right from wrong—they'll get in. I'll give it to them. Yes, they'll be the new owners. 40 But not you. Turn around and head back into the wilderness following the route to the Red Sea." 41 You spoke up, "We've sinned against God. We'll go up and fight, following all the orders that God, our God, has commanded." You took your weapons and dressed for battle—you thought it would be so easy going into those hills! 42 But God told me, "Tell them, 'Don't do it; don't go up to fight—I'm not with you in this. Your enemies will waste you.' " 43 I told you but you wouldn't listen. You rebelled at the plain word of God. You threw out your chests and strutted into the hills. 44 And those Amorites, who had lived in those hills all their lives, swarmed all over you like a hive of bees, chasing you from Seir all the way to Hormah, a stinging defeat. 45 You came back and wept in the presence of God, but he didn't pay a bit of attention to you; God didn't give you the time of day. 46 You stayed there in Kadesh a long time, about as long as you had stayed there earlier. Deut 1:1-46 (MSG)

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Chapter 2

1 Then we turned around and went back into the wilderness following the route to the Red Sea, as God had instructed me. We worked our way in and around the hills of Seir for a long, long time.
2 Then God said, 3 "You've been going around in circles in these hills long enough; go north. 4 Command the people, You're about to cut through the land belonging to your relatives, the People of Esau who settled in Seir. They are terrified of you, but restrain yourselves. 5 Don't try and start a fight. I am not giving you so much as a square inch of their land. I've already given all the hill country of Seir to Esau—he owns it all. 6 Pay them up front for any food or water you get from them." 7 God, your God, has blessed you in everything you have done. He has guarded you in your travels through this immense wilderness. For forty years now, God, your God, has been right here with you. You haven't lacked one thing. 8 So we detoured around our brothers, the People of Esau who live in Seir, avoiding the Arabah Road that comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber; instead we used the road through the Wilderness of Moab. 9 God told me, "And don't try to pick a fight with the Moabites. I am not giving you any of their land. I've given ownership of Ar to the People of Lot." 10 The Emites (Monsters) used to live there—mobs of hulking giants, like Anakites. 11 Along with the Anakites they were lumped in with the Rephaites (Ghosts) but in Moab they were called Emites. 12 Horites also used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau took over and destroyed them, the same as Israel did in the land God gave them to possess. 13 God said, "It's time now to cross the Brook Zered." So we crossed the Brook Zered. 14 It took us thirty-eight years to get from Kadesh Barnea to the Brook Zered. That's how long it took for the entire generation of soldiers from the camp to die off, as God had sworn they would. 15 God was relentless against them until the last one was gone from the camp. 16 When the last of these soldiers had died, 17 God said to me, 18 "This is the day you cut across the territory of Moab, at Ar. 19 When you approach the People of Ammon, don't try and pick a fight with them because I'm not giving you any of the land of the People of Ammon for yourselves—I've already given it to the People of Lot." 20 It is also considered to have once been the land of the Rephaites. Rephaites lived there long ago—the Ammonites called them Zamzummites (Barbarians) 21 —huge mobs of them, giants like the Anakites. God destroyed them and the Ammonites moved in and took over. 22 It was the same with the People of Esau who live in Seir—God got rid of the Horites who lived there earlier and they moved in and took over, as you can see. 23 Regarding the Avvites who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites who came from Caphtor (Crete) wiped them out and moved in.
24 "On your feet now. Get started. Cross the Brook Arnon. Look: Here's Sihon the Amorite king of Heshbon and his land. I'm handing it over to you—it's all yours. Go ahead take it. Go to war with him. 25 Before the day is out, I'll make sure that all the people around here are thoroughly terrified. Rumors of you are going to spread like wildfire; they'll totally panic." 26 From the Wilderness of Kedemoth, I sent messengers to Sihon, king of Heshbon. They carried a friendly message: 27 "Let me cross through your land on the highway. I'll stay right on the highway; I won't trespass right or left. 28 I'll pay you for any food or water we might need. Let me walk through. 29 "The People of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did this, helping me on my way until I can cross the Jordan and enter the land that God, our God, is giving us." 30 But Sihon king of Heshbon wouldn't let us cross his land. God, your God, turned his spirit mean and his heart hard so he could hand him over to you, as you can see that he has done. 31 Then God said to me, "Look, I've got the ball rolling—Sihon and his land are soon yours. Go ahead. Take it. It's practically yours!" 32 So Sihon and his entire army confronted us in battle at Jahaz. 33 God handed him, his sons, and his entire army over to us and we utterly crushed them. 34 While we were at it we captured all his towns and totally destroyed them, a holy destruction—men, women, and children. No survivors. 35 We took the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured and carried them off for ourselves. 36 From Aroer on the edge of the Brook Arnon and the town in the gorge, as far as Gilead, not a single town proved too much for us; God, our God, gave every last one of them to us. 37 The only land you didn't take, obeying God's command, was the land of the People of Ammon, the land along the Jabbok and around the cities in the hills.

Deut 2:1-37 (MSG)

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Chapter 3

1 Then we turned north and took the road to Bashan. Og king of Bashan, he and all his people, came out to meet us in battle at Edrei. 2 God said to me, "Don't be afraid of him; I'm turning him over to you, along with his whole army and his land. Treat him the way you treated Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon." 3 So God, our God, also handed Og king of Bashan over to us—Og and all his people—and we utterly crushed them. Again, no survivors. 4 At the same time we took all his cities. There wasn't one of the sixty cities that we didn't take—the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. 5 All these cities were fortress cities with high walls and barred gates. There were also numerous unwalled villages. 6 We totally destroyed them—a holy destruction. It was the same treatment we gave to Sihon king of Heshbon, a holy destruction of every city, man, woman, and child. 7 But all the livestock and plunder from the cities we took for ourselves. 8 Throughout that time we took the land from under the control of the two kings of the Amorites who ruled the country east of the Jordan, all the way from the Brook Arnon to Mount Hermon. 9 (Sirion is the name given Hermon by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it Senir.) 10 We took all the towns of the plateau, everything in Gilead, everything in Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, the border towns of Bashan, Og's kingdom. 11 Og king of Bashan was the last remaining Rephaite. His bed, made of iron, was over thirteen feet long and six wide. You can still see it on display in Rabbah of the People of Ammon.
12 Of the land that we possessed at that time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory north of Aroer along the Brook Arnon and half the hill country of Gilead with its towns. 13 I gave the half-tribe of Manasseh the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, Og's kingdom—all the region of Argob, which takes in all of Bashan. This used to be known as the Land of the Rephaites. 14 Jair, a son of Manasseh, got the region of Argob to the borders of the Geshurites and Maacathites. He named the Bashan villages after himself, Havvoth Jair (Jair's Tent-Villages). They're still called that. 15 I gave Gilead to Makir. 16 I gave the Reubenites and Gadites the land from Gilead down to the Brook Arnon, whose middle was the boundary, and as far as the Jabbok River, the boundary line of the People of Ammon. 17 The western boundary was the Jordan River in the Arabah all the way from the Kinnereth (the Sea of Galilee) to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea or Dead Sea) at the base of the slopes of Mount Pisgah on the east.
18 I commanded you at that time, "God, your God, has given you this land to possess. Your men, fit and armed for the fight, are to cross the river in advance of their brothers, the People of Israel. 19 Only your wives, children, and livestock (I know you have much livestock) may go ahead and settle down in the towns I have already given you 20 until God secures living space for your brothers as he has for you and they have taken possession of the country west of the Jordan that God, your God, is giving them. After that, each man may return to the land I've given you here."
21 I commanded Joshua at that time, "You've seen with your own two eyes everything God, your God, has done to these two kings. God is going to do the same thing to all the kingdoms over there across the river where you're headed. 22 Don't be afraid of them. God, your God, —he's fighting for you." 23 At that same time, I begged God: 24 "God, my Master, you let me in on the beginnings, you let me see your greatness, you let me see your might—what god in Heaven or Earth can do anything like what you've done! 25 Please, let me in also on the endings, let me cross the river and see the good land over the Jordan, the lush hills, the Lebanon mountains." 26 But God was still angry with me because of you. He wouldn't listen. He said, "Enough of that. Not another word from you on this. 27 Climb to the top of Mount Pisgah and look around: look west, north, south, east. Take in the land with your own eyes. Take a good look because you're not going to cross this Jordan. 28 "Then command Joshua: Give him courage. Give him strength. Single-handed he will lead this people across the river. Single-handed he'll cause them to inherit the land at which you can only look." 29 That's why we have stayed in this valley near Beth Peor.

Deut 3:1-29 (MSG)

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Chapter 4
1 Now listen, Israel, listen carefully to the rules and regulations that I am teaching you to follow so that you may live and enter and take possession of the land that God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, is giving to you. 2 Don't add a word to what I command you, and don't remove a word from it. Keep the commands of God, your God, that I am commanding you. 3 You saw with your own eyes what God did at Baal Peor, how God destroyed from among you every man who joined in the Baal Peor orgies. 4 But you, the ones who held tight to God, your God, are alive and well, every one of you, today. 5 Pay attention: I'm teaching you the rules and regulations that God commanded me, so that you may live by them in the land you are entering to take up ownership. 6 Keep them. Practice them. You'll become wise and understanding. When people hear and see what's going on, they'll say, "What a great nation! So wise, so understanding! We've never seen anything like it." 7 Yes. What other great nation has gods that are intimate with them the way God, our God, is with us, always ready to listen to us? 8 And what other great nation has rules and regulations as good and fair as this Revelation that I'm setting before you today? 9 Just make sure you stay alert. Keep close watch over yourselves. Don't forget anything of what you've seen. Don't let your heart wander off. Stay vigilant as long as you live. Teach what you've seen and heard to your children and grandchildren. 10 That day when you stood before God, your God, at Horeb, God said to me, "Assemble the people in my presence to listen to my words so that they will learn to fear me in holy fear for as long as they live on the land, and then they will teach these same words to their children." 11 You gathered. You stood in the shadow of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with fire, blazing high into the very heart of Heaven. You stood in deep darkness and thick clouds. 12 God spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but you saw nothing—no form, only a voice. 13 He announced his covenant, the Ten Words, by which he commanded you to live. Then he wrote them down on two slabs of stone. 14 And God commanded me at that time to teach you the rules and regulations that you are to live by in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess. 15 You saw no form on the day God spoke to you at Horeb from out of the fire. Remember that. Carefully guard yourselves 16 so that you don't turn corrupt and make a form, carving a figure 17 that looks male or female, or looks like a prowling animal or a flying bird 18 or a slithering snake or a fish in a stream. 19 And also carefully guard yourselves so that you don't look up into the skies and see the sun and moon and stars, all the constellations of the skies, and be seduced into worshiping and serving them. God set them out for everybody's benefit, everywhere. 20 But you—God took you right out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to become the people of his inheritance—and that's what you are this very day. 21 But God was angry with me because of you and the things you said. He swore that I'd never cross the Jordan, never get to enter the good land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance. 22 This means that I am going to die here. I'm not crossing the Jordan. But you will cross; you'll possess the good land. 23 So stay alert. Don't for a minute forget the covenant which God, your God, made with you. And don't take up with any carved images, no forms of any kind—God, your God, issued clear commands on that. 24 God, your God, is not to be trifled with—he's a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25 When the time comes that you have children and grandchildren, put on years, and start taking things for granted, if you then become corrupt and make any carved images, no matter what their form, by doing what is sheer evil in God's eyes and provoking his anger— 26 I can tell you right now, with Heaven and Earth as witnesses, that it will be all over for you. You'll be kicked off the land that you're about to cross over the Jordan to possess. Believe me, you'll have a very short stay there. You'll be ruined, completely ruined. 27 God will scatter you far and wide; a few of you will survive here and there in the nations where God will drive you. 28 There you can worship your homemade gods to your hearts' content, your wonderful gods of wood and stone that can't see or hear or eat or smell. 29 But even there, if you seek God, your God, you'll be able to find him if you're serious, looking for him with your whole heart and soul. 30 When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to God, your God, and listen obediently to what he says. 31 God, your God, is above all a compassionate God. In the end he will not abandon you, he won't bring you to ruin, he won't forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them. 32 Ask questions. Find out what has been going on all these years before you were born. From the day God created man and woman on this Earth, and from the horizon in the east to the horizon in the west—as far back as you can imagine and as far away as you can imagine—has as great a thing as this ever happened? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? 33 Has a people ever heard, as you did, a god speaking out of the middle of the fire and lived to tell the story? 34 Or has a god ever tried to select for himself a nation from within a nation using trials, miracles, and war, putting his strong hand in, reaching his long arm out, a spectacle awesome and staggering, the way God, your God, did it for you in Egypt while you stood right there and watched? 35 You were shown all this so that you would know that God is, well, God. He's the only God there is. He's it. 36 He made it possible for you to hear his voice out of Heaven to discipline you. Down on Earth, he showed you the big fire and again you heard his words, this time out of the fire. 37 He loved your ancestors and chose to work with their children. He personally and powerfully brought you out of Egypt 38 in order to displace bigger and stronger and older nations with you, bringing you out and turning their land over to you as an inheritance. And now it's happening. This very day. 39 Know this well, then. Take it to heart right now: God is in Heaven above; God is on Earth below. He's the only God there is. 40 Obediently live by his rules and commands which I'm giving you today so that you'll live well and your children after you—oh, you'll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you.
41 Then Moses set aside three towns in the country on the east side of the Jordan 42 to which someone who had unintentionally killed a person could flee and find refuge. If the murder was unintentional and there was no history of bad blood, the murderer could flee to one of these cities and save his life: 43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44 This is the Revelation that Moses presented to the People of Israel. 45 These are the testimonies, the rules and regulations Moses spoke to the People of Israel after their exodus from Egypt 46 and arrival on the east side of the Jordan in the valley near Beth Peor. It was the country of Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon. Moses and the People of Israel fought and beat him after they left Egypt 47 and took his land. They also took the land of Og king of Bashan. The two Amorite kings held the country on the east of the Jordan 48 from Aroer on the bank of the Brook Arnon as far north as Mount Siyon, that is, Mount Hermon, 49 all the Arabah plain east of the Jordan, and as far south as the Sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea) beneath the slopes of Mount Pisgah. Deut 4:1-49 (MSG)

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Chapter 5

Moses Teaches Israel on the Plains of Moab

1 Moses called all Israel together. He said to them, Attention, Israel. Listen obediently to the rules and regulations I am delivering to your listening ears today. Learn them. Live them. 2 God, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 God didn't just make this covenant with our parents; he made it also with us, with all of us who are alive right now. 4 God spoke to you personally out of the fire on the mountain. 5 At the time I stood between God and you, to tell you what God said. You were afraid, remember, of the fire and wouldn't climb the mountain. He said:
6 I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of slaves.
7 No other gods, only me. 8 No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. 9 Don't bow down to them and don't serve them because I am God, your God, and I'm a most jealous God. I hold parents responsible for any sins they pass on to their children to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation. 10 But I'm lovingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments. 11 No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won't put up with the irreverent use of his name. 12 No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. 13 Work six days, doing everything you have to do, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day—no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. 15 Don't ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That's why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest. 16 Respect your father and mother—God, your God, commands it! You'll have a long life; the land that God is giving you will treat you well. 17 No murder. 18 No adultery. 19 No stealing. 20 No lies about your neighbor. 21 No coveting your neighbor's wife. And no lusting for his house, field, servant, maid, ox, or donkey either—nothing that belongs to your neighbor!
22 These are the words that God spoke to the whole congregation at the mountain. He spoke in a tremendous voice from the fire and cloud and dark mist. And that was it. No more words. Then he wrote them on two slabs of stone and gave them to me. 23 As it turned out, when you heard the Voice out of that dark cloud and saw the mountain on fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your leaders, 24 and said, "Our God has revealed to us his glory and greatness. We've heard him speak from the fire today! We've seen that God can speak to humans and they can still live. 25 But why risk it further? This huge fire will devour us if we stay around any longer. If we hear God's voice anymore, we'll die for sure. 26 Has anyone ever known of anyone who has heard the Voice of God the way we have and lived to tell the story? 27 "From now on, you go and listen to what God, our God, says and then tell us what God tells you. We'll listen and we'll do it." 28 God heard what you said to me and told me, "I've heard what the people said to you. They're right—good and true words. 29 What I wouldn't give if they'd always feel this way, continuing to revere me and always keep all my commands; they'd have a good life forever, they and their children! 30 "Go ahead and tell them to go home to their tents. 31 But you, you stay here with me so I can tell you every commandment and all the rules and regulations that you must teach them so they'll know how to live in the land that I'm giving them as their own." 32 So be very careful to act exactly as God commands you. Don't veer off to the right or the left. 33 Walk straight down the road God commands so that you'll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you're about to possess.

Deut 5:1-33 (MSG)

latebird

Chapter 6

1 This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you're about to cross into to possess. 2 This is so that you'll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I'm commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives. 3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you're told so that you'll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey. 4 Attention, Israel! God, our God! God the one and only! 5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got! 6 Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you 7 and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. 8 Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; 9 inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates. 10 When God, your God, ushers you into the land he promised through your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you, you're going to walk into large, bustling cities you didn't build, 11 well-furnished houses you didn't buy, come upon wells you didn't dig, vineyards and olive orchards you didn't plant. When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content, 12 make sure you don't forget how you got there—God brought you out of slavery in Egypt. 13 Deeply respect God, your God. Serve and worship him exclusively. Back up your promises with his name only. 14 Don't fool around with other gods, the gods of your neighbors, 15 because God, your God, who is alive among you is a jealous God. Don't provoke him, igniting his hot anger that would burn you right off the face of the Earth. 16 Don't push God, your God, to the wall as you did that day at Massah, the Testing-Place. 17 Carefully keep the commands of God, your God, all the requirements and regulations he gave you. 18 Do what is right; do what is good in God's sight so you'll live a good life and be able to march in and take this pleasant land that God so solemnly promised through your ancestors, 19 throwing out your enemies left and right—exactly as God said. 20 The next time your child asks you, "What do these requirements and regulations and rules that God, our God, has commanded mean?" 21 tell your child, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God powerfully intervened and got us out of that country. 22 We stood there and watched as God delivered miracle-signs, great wonders, and evil-visitations on Egypt, on Pharaoh and his household. 23 He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here and give us the land he so solemnly promised to our ancestors. 24 That's why God commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before God, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come. 25 "It will be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this entire commandment in the Presence of God, our God, just as he commanded us to do."

Deut 6:1-25 (MSG)

latebird

Chapter 7

1 When God, your God, brings you into the country that you are about to enter and take over, he will clear out the superpowers that were there before you: the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Those seven nations are all bigger and stronger than you are. 2 God, your God, will turn them over to you and you will conquer them. You must completely destroy them, offering them up as a holy destruction to God. Don't make a treaty with them. Don't let them off in any way. 3 Don't marry them: Don't give your daughters to their sons and don't take their daughters for your sons— 4 before you know it they'd involve you in worshiping their gods, and God would explode in anger, putting a quick end to you. 5 Here's what you are to do:
Tear apart their altars stone by stone, smash their phallic pillars, chop down their sex-and-religion Asherah groves, set fire to their carved god-images.
6 Do this because you are a people set apart as holy to God, your God. God, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure. 7 God wasn't attracted to you and didn't choose you because you were big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. 8 He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. God stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. 10 But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn't slow to pay them off—those who hate him, he pays right on time. 11 So keep the command and the rules and regulations that I command you today. Do them. 12 And this is what will happen: When you, on your part, will obey these directives, keeping and following them, God, on his part, will keep the covenant of loyal love that he made with your ancestors:
13 He will love you, he will bless you, he will increase you.
He will bless the babies from your womb and the harvest of grain, new wine, and oil from your fields; he'll bless the calves from your herds and lambs from your flocks in the country he promised your ancestors that he'd give you. 14 You'll be blessed beyond all other peoples: no sterility or barrenness in you or your animals. 15 God will get rid of all sickness. And all the evil afflictions you experienced in Egypt he'll put not on you but on those who hate you. 16 You'll make mincemeat of all the peoples that God, your God, hands over to you. Don't feel sorry for them. And don't worship their gods—they'll trap you for sure. 17 You're going to think to yourselves, "Oh! We're outnumbered ten to one by these nations! We'll never even make a dent in them!" 18 But I'm telling you, Don't be afraid. Remember, yes, remember in detail what God, your God, did to Pharaoh and all Egypt. 19 Remember the great contests to which you were eyewitnesses: the miracle-signs, the wonders, God's mighty hand as he stretched out his arm and took you out of there. God, your God, is going to do the same thing to these people you're now so afraid of. 20 And to top it off, the Hornet. God will unleash the Hornet on them until every survivor-in-hiding is dead. 21 So don't be intimidated by them. God, your God, is among you—God majestic, God awesome. 22 God, your God, will get rid of these nations, bit by bit. You won't be permitted to wipe them out all at once lest the wild animals take over and overwhelm you. 23 But God, your God, will move them out of your way—he'll throw them into a huge panic until there's nothing left of them. 24 He'll turn their kings over to you and you'll remove all trace of them under Heaven. Not one person will be able to stand up to you; you'll put an end to them all. 25 Make sure you set fire to their carved gods. Don't get greedy for the veneer of silver and gold on them and take it for yourselves—you'll get trapped by it for sure. God hates it; it's an abomination to God, your God. 26 And don't dare bring one of these abominations home or you'll end up just like it, burned up as a holy destruction. No: It is forbidden! Hate it. Abominate it. Destroy it and preserve God's holiness.

Deut 7:1-26 (MSG)

latebird

Chapter 8

1 Keep and live out the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today so that you'll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. 2 Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God's mouth. 4 Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years. 5 You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child. 6 So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. 7 God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. 8 It's a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. 9 It's land where you'll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It's a land where you'll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills. 10 After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you. 11 Make sure you don't forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today 12 Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, 13 see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up— 14 make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery; 15 the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; 16 the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, some-thing your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
17 If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"— 18 well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today. 19 If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I'm on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. 20 You'll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn't obey the Voice of God, your God.

Deut 8:1-20 (MSG)

latebird

Chapter 9

1 Attention, Israel! This very day you are crossing the Jordan to enter the land and dispossess nations that are much bigger and stronger than you are. You're going to find huge cities with sky-high fortress-walls and 2 gigantic people, descendants of the Anakites—you've heard all about them; you've heard the saying, "No one can stand up to an Anakite." 3 Today know this: God, your God, is crossing the river ahead of you—he's a consuming fire. He will destroy the nations, he will put them under your power. You will dispossess them and very quickly wipe them out, just as God promised you would. 4 But when God pushes them out ahead of you, don't start thinking to yourselves, "It's because of all the good I've done that God has brought me in here to dispossess these nations." Actually it's because of all the evil these nations have done. 5 No, it's nothing good that you've done, no record for decency that you've built up, that got you here; it's because of the vile wickedness of these nations that God, your God, is dispossessing them before you so that he can keep his promised word to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Know this and don't ever forget it: It's not because of any good that you've done that God is giving you this good land to own. Anything but! You're stubborn as mules. 7 Keep in mind and don't ever forget how angry you made God, your God, in the wilderness. You've kicked and screamed against God from the day you left Egypt until you got to this place, rebels all the way. 8 You made God angry at Horeb, made him so angry that he wanted to destroy you. 9 When I climbed the mountain to receive the slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant that God made with you, I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights: I ate no food; I drank no water. 10 Then God gave me the two slabs of stone, engraved with the finger of God. They contained word for word everything that God spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. 11 It was at the end of the forty days and nights that God gave me the two slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 God said to me, "Get going, and quickly. Get down there, because your people whom you led out of Egypt have ruined everything. In almost no time at all they have left the road that I laid out for them and gone off and made for themselves a cast god." 13 God said, "I look at this people and all I see are hardheaded, hardhearted rebels. 14 Get out of my way now so I can destroy them. I'm going to wipe them off the face of the map. Then I'll start over with you to make a nation far better and bigger than they could ever be." 15 I turned around and started down the mountain—by now the mountain was blazing with fire—carrying the two tablets of the covenant in my two arms. 16 That's when I saw it: There you were, sinning against God, your God—you had made yourselves a cast god in the shape of a calf! So soon you had left the road that God had commanded you to walk on. 17 I held the two stone slabs high and threw them down, smashing them to bits as you watched. 18 Then I prostrated myself before God, just as I had at the beginning of the forty days and nights. I ate no food; I drank no water. I did this because of you, all your sins, sinning against God, doing what is evil in God's eyes and making him angry. 19 I was terrified of God's furious anger, his blazing anger. I was sure he would destroy you. But once again God listened to me. 20 And Aaron! How furious he was with Aaron—ready to destroy him. But I prayed also for Aaron at that same time. 21 But that sin-thing that you made, that calf-god, I took and burned in the fire, pounded and ground it until it was crushed into a fine powder, then threw it into the stream that comes down the mountain. 22 And then there was Camp Taberah (Blaze), Massah (Testing-Place), and Camp Kibroth Hattaavah (Graves-of-the-Craving)—more occasions when you made God furious with you. 23 The most recent was when God sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, ordering you: "Go. Possess the land that I'm giving you." And what did you do? You rebelled. Rebelled against the clear orders of God, your God. Refused to trust him. Wouldn't obey him. 24 You've been rebels against God from the first day I knew you. 25 When I was on my face, prostrate before God those forty days and nights after God said he would destroy you, 26 I prayed to God for you, "My Master, God, don't destroy your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt. 27 "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don't make too much of the stubbornness of this people, their evil and their sin, 28 lest the Egyptians from whom you rescued them say, 'God couldn't do it; he got tired and wasn't able to take them to the land he promised them. He ended up hating them and dumped them in the wilderness to die.' 29 "They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued."

Deut 9:1-29 (MSG)