Love and Obedience Rewarded

1“Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. 2Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the [a]chastening of the Lord your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm— 3His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: how He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; 5what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; 6and what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was [b]in their possession, in the midst of all Israel— 7but your eyes have seen every great [c]act of the Lord which He did.

8“Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, 9and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord [d]swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’ 10For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, 12a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

13‘And it shall be that if you earnestly [e]obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14then I[f] will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be [g]filled.’ 16Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, 17lest the Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.

18“Therefore you shall [h]lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.

22“For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him— 23then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. 24Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the [i]Western Sea, shall be your territory. 25No man shall be able to stand [j]against you; the Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.

26“Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; 28and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. 29Now it shall be, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh? 31For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess it and dwell in it. 32And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which I set before you today.