Study Desk

Do not test the LORD your God as you tested Him at Massah.

You are to diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God and the testimonies and statutes He has commanded you.

Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so that it may be well with you and that you may enter and possess the good land which the LORD your God swore to give your fathers,

In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the decrees and statutes and ordinances that the LORD our God has commanded you?"

And the LORD commanded us to observe all these statutes and to fear the LORD our God, that we might always prosper and be preserved, as we are this day.

And if we are careful to observe every one of these commandments before the LORD our God just as He has commanded us, then that will be our righteousness."

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-

and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession, above all peoples on the face of the earth.

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.

If you listen to these ordinances and keep them carefully, the LORD your God will keep His covenant with loving devotion, as He swore to your fathers.

You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

But do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt:

the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear.

Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet against them until all the survivors and those hiding from you have perished.

Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.

The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be enabled to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals would multiply around you.

But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed.

You must burn up the images of their gods; do not covet the silver and gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for it is detestable to the LORD your God.

Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.