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6
The commandment to love God
1 “These are the commandments and rules and regulations that Yahweh our God commanded me to teach to you. He wants you to obey them in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. 2 He wants you to revere him, and he wants you and your descendants to always obey all these rules and regulations that I am giving to you, in order that you may live for a long time. 3 So, you Israeli people, listen to them carefully and obey them. If you do that, things will go well with you, and you will become a nation with a very large population when you are living in that very fertile [IDM] land. That is what Yahweh, the God whom our ancestors worshiped, promised would happen.
4 “You Israeli people, listen! Only Yahweh is our God. 5 You must love him with all your inner being and with all that you feel and with all that you do. 6 Never forget [IDM] these commands that I am giving to you today. 7 Teach them to your children again and again. Talk about them all the time: When you are in your houses and when you are walking outside; talk about them when you are lying down and when you are doing things. 8 Write them on tiny scrolls and fasten them to your arms/wrists, and write them on bands that you fasten to your foreheads to help you to remember them. 9 Write them on the doorposts and on the gates of your houses.
10 “Yahweh our God vowed to your ancestors Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that he will give you a land that already has in it large and prosperous cities that you did not build. 11 He said that the houses in those cities will already be full of many good things that others put there; you did not put them there. There will be wells that others have dug. There will be vineyards and olive trees that others planted. So when Yahweh brings you into that land, and you have all that you want to eat, 12 be sure that you do not forget Yahweh who rescued you from being slaves in Egypt and gave all these things to you.
13 “You must revere Yahweh our God, and you must serve only him and say that he should [MTY] punish you if you do not do what you have promised. 14 You must not worship any other gods, the gods that the people-groups who will live near you worship. 15 Yahweh our God, who lives among you, ◄will not accept/will punish► people who worship anyone or anything else. So if you worship any other god, Yahweh will be very angry with you, and he will get rid of you completely. 16 Do not do sinful things to find out if you can do them without Yahweh our God punishing you, like your ancestors did at Massah. 17 Be sure that you always obey all the laws, the commandments, the rules, and the regulations that he has given to you. 18 Do what Yahweh says is right and good. If you do that, things will go well with you. You will be able to enter and occupy the good/fertile land that Yahweh vowed to give to our ancestors. 19 He will do that by expelling your enemies from that land, just like he promised to do.
20 “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘Why did Yahweh our God command us to obey all these rules and regulations?’ 21 tell them, ‘Our ancestors were slaves of the king in Egypt, but Yahweh brought them out of Egypt by his great power [MTY]. 22 They saw him do many kinds of miracles [DOU] and do terrifying things to the people of Egypt and to the king and his officials. 23 He rescued our ancestors from Egypt and brought them here to give them this land, just like he vowed that he would do. 24 And he commanded us to obey all these laws and to revere him, for our own good and in order that he would protect our nation and enable us to prosper, as he is doing now. 25 Yahweh our God will ◄approve of us/consider us to be righteous► if we carefully obey everything that he has commanded us to do.’ ”

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© 2008-2017 Ellis W. Deibler, Jr.