Study Desk

For you are a holy people for Yahweh your God; Yahweh your God has chosen you to be for him a people, a treasured possession from among all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.

"Yahweh loved you and chose you not because of your great number exceeding all other peoples, for you are fewer than all of the peoples,

but because of the love of Yahweh for you and because of his keeping of the sworn oath that he swore to your ancestors, Yahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

And you shall devour all of the peoples that Yahweh your God is giving to you; you shall not pity them, and you shall not serve their gods, which will be a snare for you.

You shall burn the images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, and so you take it for yourself, so that you are not ensnared by it, for it is a detestable thing to Yahweh your God.

And you must not bring a detestable thing into your house, or you will become a thing devoted to destruction like it; you must utterly detest it, and you must utterly abhor it, for it is an object devoted to destruction.

For Yahweh your God is bringing you to a good land with streams of water, springs and underground water, welling up in the valleys and in the hills,

"Take care for yourself so that you not forget Yahweh your God by not keeping his commandments and his regulations and his statutes that I am commanding you today,

the one leading you in the great and terrible desert infested with dangerous snakes and scorpions and parched ground, where there is no water, and the one bringing out water for you from flint rock,

And you may think in your heart, ‘My strength and the might of my hand acquired this wealth for me.'

But you must remember Yahweh your God, for he is the one giving you strength to acquire wealth in order to confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors as it is today.

And Yahweh said to me, ‘Come now, go down quickly from this mountain because your people behave corruptly whom you brought out from Egypt, for they turned quickly from the way that I commanded them to follow; they have made for themselves a cast image.'

And I looked, and indeed you had sinned against Yahweh your God; you had made for yourselves an image of a calf of cast metal; you had turned quickly from the way that Yahweh had commanded for you.

For I was in dread from being in the presence of the anger and the wrath with which Yahweh was angry with you so as to destroy you, but Yahweh listened to me also at that time.

And with Aaron Yahweh was angry enough to destroy him, and I prayed also for Aaron at that time.

For they are your people and your inheritance whom you brought with your great power and with your outstretched arm.'

"At that time Yahweh said to me, ‘Carve for yourself two tablets of stone just as the former ones, and come up the mountain to me, and you shall make for yourself an ark of wood.

Therefore there was not for Levi an allotment or an inheritance along with his brothers; rather Yahweh is his inheritance just as Yahweh your God promised to him.

to keep the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes that I am commanding you today for your own good.

Look! For to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.