Deuteronomy 11
1THEREFORE thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep His charges, and His rules of rectitude, and His commandments, and His judgments, continually.
2You must now know, for I am not addressing your children, who have not known, nor seen, the chastisement of the Lord thy God, and His great acts, and His outstretched arm,
3and His signs, and His wonders, which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharao, king of Egypt, and to all His land;
4and what He did to the army of the Egyptians—to their chariots, and their cavalry, and their host—how the Lord caused the water of the Red sea to overwhelm them, when they were pursuing you, and destroyed them even to this day:
5and what He did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place;
6and what He did to Dathan and Abiron, the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, whom the earth, opening its mouth, swallowed up, with their houses, and their tents, and all their substance with them, in the midst of all Israel.
7Because your eyes have seen all these great acts of the Lord which He hath done among you;
8therefore you shall keep all His commandments which I this day give thee in charge, that you may live, and multiply, and go in, and possess that land to which you are going to cross the Jordan, there to take possession of it that you may prolong your days in that land, which the Lord, with an oath to your fathers, promised to give to them, and to their seed after them—a land flowing with milk and honey.
10For the land to which you are going, to take possession of it, is not like the land of Egypt, from which you came out, where, when they have sown the seed, they can water it with their feet, like a garden of herbs.
11But the land to which you are going, to take possession of it, is a land of hills and dales, which drinketh up water from the rain of heaven—
12a land over which the Lord thy God keepeth a continual watch. The eyes of the Lord thy God are upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end thereof.
13And if you will hearken diligently to all the commands which I this day command thee, to love the Lord thy God, and to serve Him with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul,
14He will give rain for thy land in due season—the former and the latter rain; and thou shalt gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.
15He will also give grass in thy fields for thy cattle.
16But when thou hast eaten, and art full, take heed to thyself that thy heart be not elated; and that you do not transgress, and serve other gods, and worship them,
17lest the Lord, being provoked to wrath against you, shut up heaven, so that there shall be no rain, and the land yield not its products, and ye quickly perish from that good land, which the Lord hath given you.
18Therefore lay up these things in your heart, and in your soul, and bind them for a sign on your hand, that they may be immoveably before your eyes.
19And you shall teach them to your children, by speaking of them, when thou sittest at home, and when thou walkest abroad, and when thou liest down to sleep, and when thou risest up.
20And you shall write them on the doorposts of your houses, and of your gates;
21that you may prolong your lives, that the days of your children in the land which the Lord solemnly promised your fathers to give them, may be as the days of heaven over the earth.
22For it shall come to pass, that if you hearken diligently to all these commands, which I this day enjoin you to do—to love the Lord our God, and to walk in all His ways, and to cleave to Him,
23the Lord will drive out all those nations from before you, and yon shall possess nations much greater and stronger than you.
24Every place on which you shall imprint the track of your feet shall be yours, from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the great river Euphrates, to the western sea. These shall be your boundaries.
25None shall be able to stand before you. For the Lord your God will impress the fear of you, and the dread of you, on the face of all the land on which you shall tread, as the Lord hath said to you.
26Behold I am going to lay before you this day the blessing and the curse—
27the blessing, if you will hearken to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I this day command you—
28and the curse, if you will not hearken to the commandments of the Lord our God, in all respects, as I this day command you; but turn aside out of the way to which I have enjoined you, and go to serve other gods, which you do not know.
29And when the Lord thy God hath brought thee to the land, to which thou art going to cross over, there to take possession of it, thou shalt put the blessing on mount Garazin, and the curse on mount Gaibal.
30Behold are not these on the hank of the Jordan, behind the road to the setting of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites, whose dwelling is to the westward, adjoining Golgol, near the lofty oak? For you are going to cross the Jordan.
31When you have gone in, to possess the land which the Lord our God giveth you for a perpetual possession, and you shall dwell therein,
32be careful to perform all His commandments, and all these judgments, which I this day lay before you.