Study Desk

When you look to the heavens and see the sun, moon, and stars—all the stars in the sky—do not be led astray to bow in worship to them and serve them. The Lord your God has provided them for all people everywhere under heaven.

“The Lord was angry with me on your account. He swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you, and make an idol for yourselves in the shape of anything he has forbidden you.

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

“When you have children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, and if you act corruptly, make an idol in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, angering him,

The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be reduced to a few survivors among the nations where the Lord your God will drive you.

But from there, you will search for the Lord your God, and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and all your soul.

When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, in the future you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.

He will not leave you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them by oath, because the Lord your God is a compassionate God.

“Indeed, ask about the earlier days that preceded you, from the day God created mankind on the earth and from one end of the heavens to the other: Has anything like this great event ever happened, or has anything like it been heard of?

Or has a god attempted to go and take a nation as his own out of another nation, by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

You were shown these things so that you would know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.

Today, recognize and keep in mind that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other.

Keep his statutes and commands, which I am giving you today, so that you and your children after you may prosper and so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,

Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name.

Be careful to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy as the Lord your God has commanded you.

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or donkey, any of your livestock, or the resident alien who lives within your city gates, so that your male and female slaves may rest as you do.