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you must love the Lord your God and keep His requirements, His decrees, His ordinances, and His commands always.
2 “Remember today that I am not speaking to your children, who have not known or seen the discipline of the Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm; 3 His signs and His deeds that He did to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; 4 what He did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how when He made the waters of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has brought long-term ruin on them lasting to this day; 5 what He did for you in the wilderness until you reached this place; 6 and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of the Israelite camp and swallowed them up with their households, their tents, and every living thing that belonged to them. 7 But it is your own eyes that have seen all these great things the Lord has done.
8 “Therefore, keep all these commands that I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to cross the Jordan and take possession of the land you are to inherit, 9 and so that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your forefathers to give them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. 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 watered it, as with a vegetable garden. 11 But the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain falling from the sky above. 12 It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of each year to its end.”
13 “ ‘If you are careful to obey My commands you are receiving today—to love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul— 14 I will provide you with the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the late rain, so that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 I will provide grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied’.
16 “Be careful that your hearts are not deceived, and you turn aside and worship other gods and bow down to them, 17 then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no produce; and you will perish quickly from the good land that the Lord is giving you.
18 “You must bind these words of mine on your hearts and minds; tie them as a sign on your hands, and let them be as a symbol on your forehead. 19 Teach them to your children, 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 gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.”
22 “For if you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him— 23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and stronger than you are. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads will be yours. Your territory will extend from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River, as far as the western sea. 25 No man will be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will lay the dread of you and the fear of you on all the land where you set foot, just as He has promised you.
26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 there will be a blessing, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commands of the Lord your God and you turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today by following after other gods that you have not known.
29 “When the Lord your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses. 30 As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, beyond the western road, toward the sunset, in the territory of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, near the oaks of Moreh. 31 For you are about to cross the Jordan and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. When you have taken possession of it and have settled in it, 32 you must be careful to follow all the statutes and the ordinances that I am setting before you today.”