Deuteronomy (The Second Copy of the Law) Chapters 6-10

Deuteronomy
(The Second Copy of the Law)
Chapters 6-10

6[1-2] Now these are the judgments, the laws, and the rules, which Yahweh your God told me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you go to take for your own; so that you might respect Yahweh your God, and keep all God’s laws and judgments as long as you live, which I tell you, your children, and your grandchildren, so that you may live longer. So listen, Israel, and do it; that you may be well, and that you may greatly increase your people, as Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, has promised you, in a land full of milk and honey.
[4-9] Listen, Israel: Yahweh is our God! Yahweh is One God! Love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Let these words, which I tell you today, stay in your heart. Teach them to your children faithfully, and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk down the street, when you go to sleep, and when you get up. Put them on as a pendant on a bracelet on your hand, and let them be as a pendant on a chain falling between your eyes. Write them on the door posts of your house, and on your gates.
[10-12] When Yahweh your God brings you into the land promised to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you great and beautiful cities, which you didn't build; houses, all full of good things, which you didn't fill; wells dug out, which you didn't dig; and gardens and fruit trees, which you didn't plant, and you eat and are full; then be careful in case you forget Yahweh, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of hard work and slaving.
[13-16] Respect and serve Yahweh your God, and make your promises by the name of Yahweh. Don’t go after other gods, of the false gods of the peoples who are all around you, because Yahweh your God, who is with you, is a jealous God; and in case Yahweh your God turns angry against you, and destroys you from off the face of the earth. Don’t tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted God in Madessah.
[17-19] Keep the Laws of Yahweh your God faithfully, the judgments and laws, which God has told you. Do what’s right and good in the sight of Yahweh; that you may be blessed, and that you may go in and take the good land which Yahweh promised to your ancestors to throw out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has said.
[20-23] And when your children ask you in the time to come, saying, ‘What do these things mean, the laws and the rules, which Yahweh our God has told you? Then you’ll tell your children, ‘We were Pharaoh's workers in Egypt, and Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with great power; and Yahweh showed great and breathtaking signs and amazing things in Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, right before our eyes; and brought us out from there, to bring us in and give us the land that was promised to our ancestors.
[24-25] So Yahweh told us to do all these laws, to respect Yahweh our God, for our good always, that God might keep us alive, as it is today. We will be good, if we do all these judgments before Yahweh our God, as God has told us.
7[1-5] When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go for your own, and throws out many nations before you, the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and stronger than you; and when Yahweh your God gives them to you, and you kill them; then you’ll completely destroy them. Make no agreement with them, nor show mercy to them; Don’t make marriages with them; Don’t give your daughter to their children, nor take their daughters to your children because they’ll turn away your children from following Me, that they may serve other gods. So Yahweh will be angry at you, and will quickly destroy you. But do this to them: Break down their altars, and break their sacred posts in pieces, and cut down their trees used to worship Asherah, and burn those false gods with fire.
[6-10] You’re a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be God’s own special people, more than any other people on the earth. Yahweh didn't love you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any other people; but you were the fewest in number of all the peoples. But Yahweh loves you, and wants to keep the oath which was promised to your ancestors, so Yahweh brought you out with great power, and freed you out of the place of hard work and slaving, from the power of Pharaoh ruler of Egypt. So know that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God, who keeps promises and agreements and shows loving kindness on those who love and keep God’s Laws up to a thousand generations, and repays those who hate God to their face, to destroy them. God will not forget those who hate God, and will repay them to their face.
[11-15] So keep the judgments, the laws, and the rules, which I tell you today, and do them. If you listen to these rules, and keep and do them, then Yahweh your God will keep with you the promised agreement and show the loving kindness which was promised to your ancestors. God will love you and bless you, and make you have many children; and will also bless your children and the harvest of your ground, your grain, your new wine, and your oil, and the herds of your livestock and the young of your flock, in the land which God promised to your ancestors to give you. You’ll be blessed above all peoples: there won’t be a male or a female unable to have children among you, or among your livestock. Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, will come on you, but God will put them on all those who hate you.
[16-20] You’ll destroy all the peoples who Yahweh your God gives to you; Don’t pity them, nor serve their false gods; because that will be a trap to you. If you say in your heart, “These nations are greater than we are; how can we take them?” Don’t be afraid of them. Remember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh, and to all of Egypt; the great trials which your eyes saw, and the signs, and amazing things, and the great power and strength, by which Yahweh your God brought you out: so Yahweh your God will do to all the peoples of whom you’re afraid. Also Yahweh your God will send the hornet to attack them, until those who are left that hide themselves, die from before you.
[21-26] Don’t be scared of them; for Yahweh your God is with you, who is a great and awesome God. Yahweh your God will cast out those nations before you little by little. Don’t destroy them all at once, in case the animals of the field increase on you. But Yahweh your God will give them to you, and will confuse them with a great panic, until they’re destroyed. God will give their rulers into your power, and you’ll make their name be forgotten out of the earth: No one will be able to stand before you, until you’ve destroyed them. Burn with fire all their false gods. Don’t want the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, in case you be trapped by it; for it’s counted as wrong by Yahweh your God. Don’t bring anything that is counted as wrong into your house, and worshiped it. Completely hate it, and count it as wrong because it was worshipped.
8[1-5] Do all the judgments which I tell you today, that you may live, and have many children, and go in and take the land which Yahweh promised to your ancestors. Remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the countryside, to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep God’s Laws, or not. God humbled you, and allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you didn't know, nor did your ancestors know; to make you know that people do not live by bread only, but people live by everything that comes out of the mouth of Yahweh. Your clothing didn't grow old on you, nor did your feet swell, these forty years. Know in your heart that as a parent corrects their children, so Yahweh your God corrects you.
[6-10] So keep the Laws of Yahweh your God, follow God’s ways, and respect God. Yahweh your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of creeks and streams, and underground springs flowing into the valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; a land in which you’ll eat bread without lack, You won’t lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper. You’ll eat and be full, and you’ll bless Yahweh your God for the good land which God has given you.
[11-17] So be careful in case you forget Yahweh your God, and don’t keep God’s judgments, rules, and laws, which I tell you today, and in case, when you’ve eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses, and lived in them; and when your herds and your flocks have grown, and your silver and your gold is much, and all that you have has become plentiful; then your heart is lifted up, and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of hard work and slaving; who led you through the great and terrible countryside, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who brought you water out of the flint rock; who fed you in the countryside with manna, which your ancestors didn't know; to humble you, and test you, to do you good in the long run: and in case you say in your heart, “My own strength and power has gotten me all this wealth.”
[18-20] But remember Yahweh your God, for it’s God who gives you the ability to get wealth; to keep the promised agreement which was promised to your ancestors, as at today. But if you forget Yahweh your God, and follow other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you today that you’ll, without a doubt, die. You’ll die as the nations that Yahweh makes to die before you, because you wouldn't listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.
9[1-5] Listen, Israel: you’re to pass over the Jordan today, to go in to take ownership of nations greater and stronger than yourself, cities great and strongly built up to the sky, a people as great and as tall as the Anakim giants, whom you know, and of whom you’ve heard say, “Who can stand before the people of Anak?” So know today, that Yahweh your God is the One who goes over before you as a burning fire; and will destroy them, and will bring them down before you. So drive them out, and make them die quickly, as Yahweh has told you. Don't say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrown them out from before you, saying, “For my goodness Yahweh has brought me in to take ownership this land;” while it’s for the evil of these nations Yahweh will drive them out from before you. Not for any good that you’ve done, or for the goodness of your heart, do you go in to take ownership their land; but for the evil of these nations Yahweh your God drives them out from before you, to keep the word which Yahweh promised to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[6-10] So know that Yahweh your God doesn't give you this good land for your own for your goodness; because you’re a stubborn people. Remember, and don't forget, how you made Yahweh your God very angry in the countryside from the day that you left the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you’ve fought against Yahweh. Also in Horeb you made Yahweh very angry, and God was angry enough with you to destroy you. But when I had gone up onto the mountain to get the stone slabs, even the slabs of the Law which Yahweh made for you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; and I didn’t eat any bread nor drink any water. Then Yahweh gave to me the two stone slabs written with the finger of God; and on them was written all the words, which Yahweh told you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly.
[11-] At the end of forty days and forty nights, Yahweh gave me the two stone slabs, even the slabs of the Law. Then Yahweh said to me, “Get up, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you’ve brought forth out of Egypt have ruined themselves; they have quickly turned aside out of the way which I told them; they have made them a false god.” Also Yahweh told me, saying, “I’ve seen this people, and you see, they’re a stubborn people. Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and make their name be forgotten from the earth; and I’ll make of you a nation stronger and greater than they.”
[15-21] So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire: and the two slabs of the Law were in my two hands. I looked and saw that you had sinned against Yahweh your God; you had made you a molten calf and had turned quickly away from what Yahweh had told you. So I took hold of the two slabs, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. Then I fell down before Yahweh, as I did the first time, for another forty days and forty nights; I didn’t eat bread nor drink any water; because of all your sin which you sinned, doing what was evil to Yahweh, to make God very angry. I was afraid of the anger and rage, which Yahweh had against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also. And Yahweh was very angry with Aaron to destroy him but I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust: and I cast the dust of it into the stream that fell out of the mountain.
[22-29] At Taberah, Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah, you made Yahweh very angry. When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and take the land which I’ve given you; then you fought against the judgments of Yahweh your God, and you didn't believe God, nor listen to God’s voice. You’ve fought against Yahweh from the day that I knew you. So I fell down before Yahweh the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Yahweh had promised to destroy you. But I prayed to Yahweh, and said, Yahweh God, don't destroy your people, your own people, that you’ve freed through your greatness, that you’ve brought out of Egypt with a great power. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and don't look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their evil, nor at their sin, in case the land where you brought us out say, “Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which was promised to them, and because God hated them, God has brought them out to kill them in the countryside.” Yet they are your own people, which you brought out by your great power and by your great strength.
10[1-5] At that time Yahweh said to me, Cut out two stone slabs like the first, and come up to me onto the mountain, and make a box of wood. I’ll write on the slabs the words that were on the first slabs which you broke, and you’ll put them in the box. So I made a box of acacia wood, and cut out two stone slabs like the first, and went up onto the mountain, having the two slabs in my hands. God wrote on the slabs, just like the first writing, the Ten Laws, which Yahweh told you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly: and Yahweh gave them to me. I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the slabs in the box which I had made; and there they are as Yahweh told me.
[6-9] The people of Israel traveled from Beeroth Bene Jaakan to Moserah. Aaron died there, and was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his place. From there they traveled to Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of creeks. At that time Yahweh set apart the family group of Levi, to handle the box of the Law of Yahweh, to minister to Yahweh, and to bless in Yahweh’s name, to today. So Levi has no part of the land with his brothers; Yahweh is Levi’s inheritance, as Yahweh your God said.
[10-] I stayed on the mountain, as the first time, forty days and forty nights. Yahweh listened to me that time also and did not destroy you. Yahweh said to me, Get up, and move out before the people; and they will go in and take the land, which I promised to their ancestors to give to them. Now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God require of you, but to respect and love Yahweh your God, to follow God’s ways, and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the Laws and judgments of Yahweh, which I tell you today for your own good?
[14-22] See, heaven and the heaven of heavens, and the earth, and everything in it belongs to Yahweh your God. Only Yahweh was happy to love your ancestors, and chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as at today. So cut the foreskin of your heart, and don’t be so stubborn. For Yahweh your God is God of gods, and Ruler of rulers, the great God, the great and awesome God, who doesn't consider who a person is, nor can be bribed. God gets justice for the orphan and the survivor, and loves to give the foreigner food and clothing. So love the foreigner; for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. Respect and serve Yahweh your God; and hold on to God, and make your promises by God’s name. Yahweh is your praise, and your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things, which your eyes have seen. Your ancestors went down into Egypt with seventy people; and now Yahweh your God has made you as the stars of the sky you are so many.