Study Desk

Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here by your burnt offering while I am gone. Maybe the Lord will meet with me. I will tell you whatever he reveals to me.” So he went to a barren hill.

Now I am going back to my people, but first, let me warn you what these people will do to your people in the future.”

“But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them: Don’t go up and fight, for I am not with you to keep you from being defeated by your enemies.’

“Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live, enter, and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

You must not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, so that you may keep the commands of the Lord your God I am giving you.

I won’t be crossing the Jordan because I am going to die in this land. But you are about to cross over and take possession of this good land.

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.”

Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am proclaiming as you hear them today. Learn and follow them carefully.

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,

But you stand here with me, and I will tell you every command—the statutes and ordinances—you are to teach them, so that they may follow them in the land I am giving them to possess.’

Do this so that you may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life by keeping all his statutes and commands I am giving you, your son, and your grandson, and so that you may have a long life.

These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.

So keep the command—the statutes and ordinances—that I am giving you to follow today.

“Carefully follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase, and may enter and take possession of the land the Lord swore to your fathers.

“Be careful that you don’t forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commands, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today.

Keep the Lord’s commands and statutes I am giving you today, for your own good.

“Keep every command I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to cross into and possess the land you are to inherit,

“If you carefully obey my commands I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and worship him with all your heart and all your soul,

For if you carefully observe every one of these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, and remain faithful to him—