Deuteronomy 10:12-12:19

Contemporary English Version

What the Lord Wants

Moses said:

¹²People of Israel, what does the Lord your God want from you? The Lord wants you to respect and follow him, to love and serve him with all your heart and soul, ¹³and to obey his laws and teachings that I am giving you today. Do this, and all will go well for you.

¹⁴Everything belongs to the Lord your God, not only the earth and everything on it, but also the sky and the highest heavens. ¹⁵Yet the Lord loved your ancestors and wanted them to belong to him. So he chose them and their descendants rather than any other nation, and today you are still his people.

¹⁶Remember your agreement with the Lord and stop being so stubborn. ¹⁷^(A) The Lord your God is more powerful than all other gods and lords, and his tremendous power is to be feared. His decisions are always fair, and you cannot bribe him to change his mind. ¹⁸^(B) The Lord defends the rights of orphans and widows. He cares for foreigners and gives them food and clothing. ¹⁹And you should also care for them, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

²⁰Respect the Lord your God, be faithful, and serve only him, making promises in his name. ²¹Offer your praises to him, because you have seen him work such terrifying miracles for you.

²²^(C) When your ancestors went to live in Egypt, there were only 70 of them. But the Lord has blessed you, and now there are more of you than there are stars in the sky.

If You Are Loyal to the Lord, He Will Bless You

Moses said to Israel:

11 The Lord is your God, so you must always love him and obey his laws and teachings. ²Remember, he corrected you and not your children. You are the ones who saw the Lord use his great power ³^(D) when he worked miracles in Egypt, making terrible things happen to the king and all his people. ⁴^(E) And when the Egyptian army chased you in their chariots, you saw the Lord drown them and their horses in the Red Sea.^[a] Egypt still suffers from that defeat!

⁵You saw what the Lord did for you while you were in the desert, right up to the time you arrived here. ⁶^(F) And you saw how the Lord made the ground open up in the middle of our camp underneath the tents of Dathan and Abiram,^[b] who were swallowed up along with their families, their animals, and their tents.

⁷With your own eyes, you saw the Lord's mighty power do all these things.

⁸Soon you will cross the Jordan River, and if you obey the laws and teachings I'm giving you today, you will be strong enough to conquer the land ⁹that the Lord promised your ancestors and their descendants. It's rich with milk and honey, and you will live there and enjoy it for a long time. ¹⁰It's better land than you had in Egypt, where you had to struggle just to water your crops.^[c] ¹¹But the hills and valleys in the promised land are watered by rain from heaven,^[d] ¹²because the Lord your God keeps his eye on this land and takes care of it all year long.

¹³^(G) The Lord your God commands you to love him and to serve him with all your heart and soul. If you obey him, ^14-15he will send rain at the right seasons,^[e] so you will have more than enough food, wine, and olive oil, and there will be plenty of grass for your cattle.

¹⁶But watch out! You will be tempted to turn your backs on the Lord. And if you worship other gods, ¹⁷the Lord will become angry and keep the rain from falling. Nothing will grow in your fields, and you will die and disappear from the good land that the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸^(H) Memorize these laws and think about them. Write down copies and tie them to your wrists and your foreheads to help you obey them. ¹⁹Teach them to your children. Talk about them all the time—whether you're at home or walking along the road or going to bed at night, or getting up in the morning. ²⁰Write them on the door frames of your homes and on your town gates. ²¹Then you and your descendants will live a long time in the land that the Lord promised your ancestors. Your families will live there as long as the sky is above the earth.

²²Love the Lord your God faithfully and obey all the laws and teachings I'm giving you today. If you live the way the Lord wants, ²³he will help you take the land. And even though the nations there are more powerful than you, the Lord will force them to leave when you attack. ²⁴^(I) You will capture the land everywhere you go, from the Southern Desert to the Lebanon Mountains, and from the Euphrates River west to the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁵No one will be able to stand up to you. The Lord will make everyone terrified of you, just as he promised.

²⁶You have a choice—do you want the Lord to bless you, or do you want him to put a curse on you? ²⁷Today I am giving you his laws, and if you obey him, he will bless you. ²⁸But if you disobey him and worship those gods that have never done anything for you, the Lord will put a curse on you.

²⁹^(J) After the Lord your God helps you take the land, you must have a ceremony where you announce his blessings from Mount Gerizim and his curses from Mount Ebal. ³⁰You know that these two mountains are west of the Jordan River in land now controlled by the Canaanites living in the Jordan River valley. The mountains are west of the road near the sacred trees of Moreh on the other side of Gilgal.

³¹Soon you will cross the Jordan River to conquer the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you have settled there, ³²be careful to obey his laws and teachings that I am giving you today.

Only One Place To Worship the Lord

Moses said to Israel:

12 Now I'll tell you the laws and teachings that you have to obey as long as you live. Your ancestors worshiped the Lord, and he is giving you this land. ²But the nations that live there worship other gods. So after you capture the land, you must completely destroy their places of worship—on mountains and hills or in the shade of large trees. ³^(K) Wherever these nations worship their gods, you must tear down their altars, break their sacred stones, burn the sacred poles^[f] used in worshiping the goddess Asherah, and smash their idols to pieces. Destroy these places of worship so completely that no one will remember they were ever there. ⁴Don't worship the Lord your God in the way those nations worship their gods.

^5-19^(L) Soon you will cross the Jordan, and the Lord will help you conquer your enemies and let you live in peace, there in the land he has given you. But after you are settled, life will be different. You must not offer sacrifices just anywhere you want to. Instead, the Lord will choose a place somewhere in Israel where you must go to worship him. All of your sacrifices and offerings must be taken there, including sacrifices to please the Lord^[g] and any gift you promise or voluntarily give him. That's where you must also take one tenth of your grain, wine, and olive oil,^[h] as well as the first-born of your cattle, sheep, and goats.^[i] You and your family and servants will eat your gifts and sacrifices^[j] and celebrate there at the place of worship, because the Lord your God has made you successful in everything you have done. And since Levites will not have any land of their own, you must ask some of them to come along and celebrate with you.

Sometimes you may want to kill an animal for food and not as a sacrifice. If the Lord has blessed you and given you enough cows or sheep or goats, then you can butcher one of them where you live. You can eat it just like the meat from a deer or gazelle that you kill when you go hunting. And even those people who are unclean and unfit for worship can have some of the meat. But you must not eat the blood of any animal—let the blood drain out on the ground.

Footnotes

11.4 Red Sea: Hebrew yam suph, “Sea of Reeds,” one of the marshes or fresh water lakes near the eastern part of the Nile Delta. This identification is based on Exodus 13.7—14.9, which lists towns on the route of the Israelites before crossing the sea. In the Greek translation of the Scriptures made about 200 b.c., the “Sea of Reeds” was named “Red Sea.”
11.6 Dathan and Abiram: Hebrew “Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab from the Reuben tribe.”
11.10 where … crops: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
11.10,11 to water your crops … rain from heaven: Egypt was flat and had very little rain. All water for crops had to come from the Nile River.
11.14,15 rain … seasons: In Palestine, almost all the rain for the year comes during the months from October through April.
12.3 sacred poles: Or “trees,” used as symbols of Asherah, the goddess of fertility.
12.5-19 sacrifices to please the Lord: These sacrifices have traditionally been called “whole burnt offerings” because the whole animal was burned on the altar. A main purpose of such sacrifices was to please the Lord with the smell of the sacrifice, and so in the CEV they are often called “sacrifices to please the Lord.”
12.5-19 one tenth of your grain, wine, and olive oil: The Israelites had to give one tenth of their harvest of these products to the Lord each year (see 14.22-29; 26.12,13; Leviticus 27.30-33).
12.5-19 the first-born of your cattle, sheep, and goats: The Israelites had to sacrifice these to the Lord (see 15.19-22).
12.5-19 sacrifices: Some sacrifices were completely burned on the altar; in other sacrifices, part of the animal was burned and part was given to the priests, but most of the meat was eaten by the worshipers as a sacred meal.