1 So, love Yahweh, your God, and observe all that he has commanded you: his laws, norms and com mand ments.
2 You, with whom I am speaking, understand all this. Perhaps this may be more difficult for your children who have not known the teaching of Yahweh or seen his greatness and strength.
3 But you saw the signs and the marvels he did in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land,
4 and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and chariots, when he buried them in the waters of the Red Sea, destroying them as they pursued us.
5 Remember, too, all that Yahweh did for you in the desert, until you came to this place,
6 what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, from the tribe of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them with all their families, their tents and their followers, in the midst of all Israel.
7 You have seen with your eyes all these great wonders that Yahweh has done.
8 Therefore, observe all these commandments that I give you, that you may gather strength and occupy the land which you are going over to possess.
9 And you will live long in the land which Yahweh swore to give to your ancestors and to their de scen dants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 For the land you are to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt which you left, where after having sown your seeds, you had to water them like a vegetable garden with your feet on the water wheel,
11 but a land of mountains and valleys, which drinks water from the rain that comes from the heavens.
12 Yah weh, your God, cares for this land and his eyes are constantly fixed on it from the beginning of the year until its end.
13 If you truly obey the commandments that I give you today, if you love Yahweh and serve me with all your heart and with all your soul,
14 I will give rain to your land in season, both in autumn and in spring, that you may harvest your wheat, wine and oil.
15 Your field will give you grass for your cattle, and you will eat until you are satisfied.
16 But if you turn aside, if you serve other gods and bow before them,
17 the anger of Yahweh will break out against you. He will close up the heavens and it will cease to rain; the land will not yield its fruit and you will suddenly perish in that beautiful land which Yahweh gives you.
18 Engrave these words of mine on your heart and in your soul, brand them on your hand as a sign, and keep them always before your eyes.
19 Teach them to your children. Speak of them when you are at home and when you travel, when you lie down and when you rise.
20 En grave them on your doorposts and on your city gates.
21 Then your days and the days of your children will be multiplied in the land which Yahweh swore to give to your fathers, and you will dwell in that land as long as the heavens are above the earth.
22 For if you observe the commandments that I command you to practice, if you love Yahweh and follow his ways, clinging to him,
23 Yahweh will destroy all those nations before you and you will seize the land from greater and more powerful nations.
24 Every place where you set foot will be yours; your territory will be from the desert up to Lebanon and from the Eu phrates River up to the Western Sea.
25 No one will be able to stand against you. In all the land that you tread, Yahweh will make the peoples fear and be afraid when they hear of you, as he himself has said.
There will be one sanctuary
26 See that on this day, I set before you a blessing and a curse.
27 A blessing if you obey the commandments of Yahweh that I command you today;
28 a curse if you disobey these commandments and turn aside from the way that I show you now, to follow strange gods which are not yours.
29 When Yahweh, your God, has brought you into the land you are going to conquer, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim, and the curse on Mount Ebal.
30 (Those mountains are at the other side of the Jordan, beyond the western road, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, near the oak of Moreh.)
31 Now you are going to cross the Jordan to take possession of the land which Yahweh gives you. You are to possess it and live in it,
32 and be careful to carry out all the laws and precepts which I now set before you.
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Comments Deuteronomy, Chapter 11
• 11.1 “To you who saw the miracles, I say: remember.” The same lessons are repeated. Israel will continue safely in the land if future generations do not forget what the Lord did for their ancestors. Thus, those who saw God’s marvelous deeds have the obligation to teach them to their children.
Faith is not as much rooted in a doctrine than in the discovery of God’s liberating interventions. We see him in our life, in the life of a Christian community, which transforms those who are in contact with it.
At whatever time, the way for parents to edu cate their children in the faith is to share their own religious experience with them and to show them how they found the living God. Faith is passed on from one person to another.
• 10. Deuteronomy mentions several times the land flowing with milk and honey (9). This means usually in the Bible a blessed country. The present paragraph however gives it a different meaning. In the land of Egypt, people work and harvest. In Israel instead the flocks depend on grass, and on rain, which is given by God; and it is the same for honey. So life in Israel will always depend on divine generosity and people’s faithfulness to the covenant.
• 26. Here we have a reference to the Co ve nant held by Joshua (Jos 8:30).