Study Desk

He will love you and bless you. He will make your nation grow. He will bless your children. He will bless your fields with good crops and will give you grain, new wine, and oil. He will bless your cows with calves and your sheep with lambs. You will have all these blessings in the land that he promised your ancestors to give you.

"You will be blessed more than all people. Every husband and wife will be able to have children. Your cows will be able to have calves.

Remember today all the great things the Lord your God has done to teach you. It was you, not your children, who saw those things happen and lived through them. You saw how great he is. You saw how strong he is, and you saw the powerful things he does.

You, not your children, saw the miracles he did in Egypt. You saw what he did to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to his whole country.

You, not your children, saw what he did to the Egyptian army—to their horses and chariots. They were chasing you, but you saw him cover them with the water from the Red Sea. You saw how the Lord completely destroyed them.

It was you, not your children, who saw everything he did for you in the desert until you came to this place.

It was you, not your children, who saw all the great things the Lord did.

Teach these laws to your children. Talk about these things when you sit in your houses, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.

Then both you and your children will live a long time in the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors. You will live there as long as the skies are above the earth.

Come to that place with all your people—your children, all your servants, and the Levites living in your towns. (These Levites will not have a share of the land for their own.) Enjoy yourselves together there with the Lord your God.

Don't do that to the Lord your God! These people do all kinds of bad things that the Lord hates. They even burn their children as sacrifices to their gods!

"You are the children of the Lord your God. When someone dies, you must not cut yourselves or shave your heads to show your sadness.

But you may take for yourselves the women, the children, the cattle, and everything else in the city. You may use all these things. The Lord your God has given these things to you.

"A man might have two wives. He might love one wife more than the other. Both wives might have children for him, but the firstborn son might be from the wife he does not love.

When the man divides his property among his children, he cannot give the rights of the firstborn to the son of his favorite wife.

The children of the third generation born to the Edomites and Egyptians may join with the people of Israel to worship the Lord .

"Parents must not be put to death for something their children did. And children must not be put to death for something their parents did. People should be put to death only for a bad thing that they themselves did.

He will bless you and give you many children. He will bless your land and give you good crops. He will bless your animals and let them have many babies. He will bless you with calves and lambs.

"And the Lord will give you many good things. He will give you many children. He will give your cows many calves. He will give you a good harvest in the land that the Lord promised your ancestors to give you.

He will curse you, and you will not have many children. He will curse your land, and you will not have good crops. He will curse your animals, and they will not have many babies. He will curse your calves and lambs.