Study Desk

But because of his love for you, and in order to keep his oath to your fathers, the Lord took you out with the strength of his hand, making you free from the prison-house and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Be certain, then, that the Lord your God is God; whose faith and mercy are unchanging, who keeps his word through a thousand generations to those who have love for him and keep his laws;

And you are to send destruction on all the peoples which the Lord your God gives into your hands; have no pity on them, and do not give worship to their gods; for that will be a cause of sin to you.

Have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, a great God greatly to be feared.

The Lord your God will send out the nations before you little by little; they are not to be rooted out quickly, for fear that the beasts of the field may be increased overmuch against you.

The images of their gods are to be burned with fire: have no desire for the gold and silver on them, and do not take it for yourselves, for it will be a danger to you: it is a thing disgusting to the Lord your God:

And you may not take a disgusting thing into your house, and so become cursed with its curse: but keep yourselves from it, turning from it with fear and hate, for it is a cursed thing.

And he made low your pride and let you be without food and gave you manna for your food, a thing new to you, which your fathers never saw; so that he might make it clear to you that bread is not man's only need, but his life is in every word which comes out of the mouth of the Lord.

For the Lord your God is guiding you into a good land, a land of water-springs, of fountains, and deep streams flowing out from the valleys and the hills;

Where there will be bread for you in full measure and you will be in need of nothing; a land where the very stones are iron and from whose hills you may get copper.

And you will have food enough and be full, praising the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

And when you have taken food and are full, and have made fair houses for yourselves and are living in them;

Who was your guide through that great and cruel waste, where there were poison-snakes and scorpions and a dry land without water; who made water come out of the hard rock for you;

Who gave you manna for your food in the waste land, a food which your fathers had never seen; so that your pride might be broken and your hearts tested for your good in the end;

But keep in mind the Lord your God: for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, so that he may give effect to the agreement which he made by his oath with your fathers, as at this day.

Not for your righteousness or because your hearts are upright are you going in to take their land; but because of the evil-doing of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and to give effect to his oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Be certain then that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land as a reward for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.

When I had gone up into the mountain to be given the stones on which was recorded the agreement which the Lord made with you, I was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights without taking food or drinking water.

And the Lord said to me, Get up now, and go down quickly from this place; for the people you have taken out of Egypt have given themselves over to evil; they have quickly been turned from the way in which I gave them orders to go; they have made themselves a metal image.

And I saw that you had done evil against the Lord, and had made for yourselves a metal image of a young ox: you had quickly been turned from the way in which the Lord had given you orders to go.