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Great Things Israel Saw

¹ Love the Lord your God and always obey his orders, rules, laws, and commands. ² Remember today it was not your children who saw and felt the correction of the Lord your God. They did not see his majesty, his power, his strength, ³ or his signs and the things he did in Egypt to the king and his whole country. ⁴ They did not see what he did to the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, when he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. The Lord ruined them forever. ⁵ They did not see what he did for you in the desert until you arrived here. ⁶ They did not see what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the ground opened up and swallowed them, their families, their tents, and everyone who stood with them in Israel. ⁷ It was you who saw all these great things the Lord has done.

⁸ So obey all the commands I am giving you today so that you will be strong and can go in and take the land you are going to take as your own. ⁹ Then you will live a long time in the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a fertile land. ¹⁰ The land you are going to take is not like Egypt, where you were. There you had to plant your seed and water it, like a vegetable garden, by using your feet. ¹¹ But the land that you will soon cross the Jordan River to take is a land of hills and valleys, a land that drinks rain from heaven. ¹² It is a land the Lord your God cares for. His eyes are on it continually, and he watches it from the beginning of the year to the end.

¹³ If you carefully obey the commands I am giving you today and love the Lord your God and serve him with your whole being, ¹⁴ then he will send rain on your land at the right time, in the fall and spring, and you will be able to gather your grain, new wine, and oil. ¹⁵ He will put grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will have plenty to eat.

¹⁶ Be careful, or you will be fooled and will turn away to serve and worship other gods. ¹⁷ If you do, the Lord will become angry with you and will shut the heavens so it will not rain. Then the land will not grow crops, and you will soon die in the good land the Lord is giving you. ¹⁸ Remember my words with your whole being. Write them down and tie them to your hands as a sign; tie them on your foreheads to remind you. ¹⁹ Teach them well to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on your doors and gates ²¹ so that both you and your children will live a long time in the land the Lord promised your ancestors, as long as the skies are above the earth.

²² If you are careful to obey every command I am giving you to follow, and love the Lord your God, and do what he has told you to do, and are loyal to him, ²³ then the Lord will force all those nations out of the land ahead of you, and you will take the land from nations that are bigger and stronger than you. ²⁴ Everywhere you step will be yours. Your land will go from the desert to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁵ No one will be able to stop you. The Lord your God will do what he promised and will make the people afraid everywhere you go.

²⁶ See, today I am letting you choose a blessing or a curse. ²⁷ You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. ²⁸ But you will be cursed if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God. So do not disobey the commands I am giving you today, and do not worship other gods you do not know. ²⁹ When the Lord your God brings you into the land you will take as your own, you are to announce the blessings from Mount Gerizim and the curses from Mount Ebal. ³⁰ (These mountains are on the other side of the Jordan River, to the west, toward the sunset. They are near the great trees of Moreh in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley opposite Gilgal.) ³¹ You will soon cross the Jordan River to enter and take the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and live there, ³² be careful to obey all the commands and laws I am giving you today.