Study Desk

But you, the ones holding fast to Yahweh your God, are all alive today.

See, I now teach you rules and regulations just as Yahweh my God has commanded me, to observe them just so in the midst of the land where you are going, to take possession of it.

For what great nation has for it a god near to it as Yahweh our God, whenever we call upon him?

Remember the day that you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb when Yahweh said to me, ‘Summon for me the people so that I can tell them my words, that they may learn to fear me all of the days they are alive on the earth and so that they may teach their children.'

And do this so that you do not lift your eyes toward heaven and observe the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heaven, and be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that Yahweh your God has allotted to all of the peoples under all of the heaven.

"And Yahweh was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan and that I would not go to the good land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Watch out for yourselves so that you do not forget the covenant of Yahweh your God that he had made with you and make for yourselves a divine image of the form of anything that Yahweh your God has forbidden,

for Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

"When you have had children and grandchildren and you have grown old in the land and you act corruptly and you make a divine image of the form of anything and you do evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, thus provoking him to anger,

But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.

In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice.

For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.

"Yes, ask, please, about former days that preceded you from the day that God created humankind on the earth; ask even from one end of the heaven up to the other end of heaven whether anything ever happened like this great thing or whether anything like it was ever heard.

Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, just as you heard it, and lived?

Or has a god ever attempted to go to take for himself a nation from the midst of a nation, using trials and signs and wonders and war, with an outstretched arm and with great and awesome deeds, like all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

You yourselves were shown this wonder in order for you to acknowledge that Yahweh is the God; there is no other God besides him.

So you shall acknowledge today, and you must call to mind that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no other God.

And you shall keep his rules and his commandments that I am commanding you today, so that it may go well for you and for your children after you, and so that you may remain a long time on the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you during all of those days."

Yahweh our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

‘I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.