Remember and Obey

11 “Therefore, love the Lord your God and always keep his mandate and his statutes, ordinances, and commands. ² Understand today that it is not your children who experienced or saw the discipline of the Lord your God:

His greatness, strong hand, and outstretched arm;^{(A) 3} his signs and the works he did in Egypt to Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his land;^{(B) 4} what he did to Egypt’s army, its horses and chariots, when he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, and he destroyed them^(C) completely;^{[a] 5} what he did to you in the wilderness until you reached this place; ⁶ and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when in the middle of the whole Israelite camp the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing with them.^(D)

⁷ Your own eyes have seen^(E) every great work the Lord has done.

⁸ “Keep every command I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to cross into and possess the land you are to inherit, ⁹ and so that you may live long^(F) in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.^{(G) 10} For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated by hand^[b] as in a vegetable garden. ¹¹ But the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys, watered by rain from the sky. ¹² It is a land the Lord your God cares for. He is always watching over it^(H) from the beginning to the end of the year.

¹³ “If you carefully obey my commands I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and worship him with all your heart and all your soul, ¹⁴ I^[c] will provide rain for your land in the proper time, the autumn and spring rains,^(I) and you will harvest your grain, new wine, and fresh oil.^{(J) 15} I^[d] will provide grass in your fields for your livestock. You will eat and be satisfied.^{(K) 16} Be careful^(L) that you are not enticed to turn aside, serve, and bow in worship to other gods.^{(M) 17} Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you.^(N) He will shut the sky, and there will be no rain;^(O) the land will not yield its produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land^(P) the Lord is giving you.

¹⁸ “Imprint these words of mine on your hearts and minds, bind them as a sign on your hands, and let them be a symbol^[e] on your foreheads.^{[f] 19} Teach them to your children,^(Q) talking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates,^{(R) 21} so that as long as the heavens are above the earth, your days and those of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors.^{(S) 22} For if you carefully observe every one of these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, and remain faithful^[g] to him— ²³ the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will drive out nations greater and stronger than you are.^{(T) 24} Every place the sole of your foot treads will be yours.^(U) Your territory will extend from the wilderness to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River^[h] to the Mediterranean Sea.^{(V) 25} No one will be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put fear and dread of you in all the land where you set foot, as he has promised you.^(W)

A Blessing and a Curse

²⁶ “Look, today I set before you a blessing and a curse:^{(X) 27} there will be a blessing, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God I am giving you today, ²⁸ and a curse, if you do not obey the commands of the Lord your God and you turn aside from the path I command you today by following other gods you have not known. ²⁹ When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal. ³⁰ Aren’t these mountains across the Jordan, beyond the western road in the land of the Canaanites, who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, near the oaks^[i] of Moreh? ³¹ For you are about to cross the Jordan to enter and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you possess it and settle in it, ³² be careful to follow all the statutes and ordinances I set before you today.

Psalm 95

Worship and Warning

Psalm 96^(M)

King of the Earth

Hezekiah’s Folly

39 At that time^(A) Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah since he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. ² Hezekiah was pleased with the letters, and he showed the envoys his treasure house—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil—and all his armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries.^(B) There was nothing in his palace and in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.^(C)

³ Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say, and where did they come to you from?”

Hezekiah replied, “They came to me from a distant country, from Babylon.”

⁴ Isaiah asked, “What have they seen in your palace?”

Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything in my palace. There isn’t anything in my treasuries that I didn’t show them.”

⁵ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of Armies:^{(D) 6} ‘Look, the days are coming when everything in your palace and all that your predecessors have stored up until today will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.^{(E) 7} ‘Some of your descendants—who come from you, whom you father—will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

⁸ Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good,” for he thought: There will be peace and security during my lifetime.^(F)

The Fifth Trumpet

9 The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth.^(A) The key for the shaft to the abyss^(B) was given to him. ² He opened the shaft to the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great^[a] furnace^(C) so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.^{(D) 3} Then locusts came out of the smoke on to the earth,^(E) and power^[b] was given to them^(F) like the power that scorpions have on the earth.^{(G) 4} They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green plant, or any tree,^(H) but only those people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads.^{(I) 5} They were not permitted to kill them but were to torment them for five months; their torment is like the torment caused by a scorpion when it stings someone. ⁶ In those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.^(J)

⁷ The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle.^(K) Something like golden crowns was on their heads; their faces were like human faces; ⁸ they had hair like women’s hair; their teeth were like lions’ teeth;^{(L) 9} they had chests like iron breastplates; the sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots with horses rushing into battle; ¹⁰ and they had tails with stingers like scorpions, so that with their tails they had the power to harm people for five months. ¹¹ They had as their king^[c] the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon,^[d](M) and in Greek he has the name Apollyon.^[e]

¹² The first woe has passed. There are still two more woes to come after this.^(N)

The Sixth Trumpet

¹³ The sixth angel blew his trumpet. From the four^[f] horns of the golden altar^(O) that is before God, I heard a voice ¹⁴ say to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels^(P) bound at the great river Euphrates.”^{(Q) 15} So the four angels who were prepared for the hour, day, month, and year^(R) were released to kill a third^(S) of the human race. ¹⁶ The number of mounted troops was two hundred million;^[g] I heard their number. ¹⁷ This is how I saw the horses and their riders in the vision: They had breastplates that were fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur.^{(T) 18} A third of the human race was killed by these three plagues—by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur that came from their mouths. ¹⁹ For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, because their tails, which resemble snakes, have heads that inflict injury.

²⁰ The rest of the people, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands^(U) to stop worshiping demons^(V) and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood,^(W) which cannot see, hear, or walk.^{(X) 21} And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.