Deuteronomy Chapter 11

Moses delivered three farewell speeches just before he died. In them he recapitulated, with the people, all the laws of God for the Israelites. The name of the book expresses this "recap" or "second law".

A Conservative Version

11 : 1 Therefore thou shall love Jehovah thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his ordinances, and his commandments, always.

11 : 2 And ye know this day, for it is not with your sons who have not known, and who have not seen the chastisement of Jehovah your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm,

11 : 3 and his signs, and his works, which he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and to all his land,

11 : 4 and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how Jehovah has destroyed them to this day,

11 : 5 and what he did to you in the wilderness, until ye came to this place,

11 : 6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel,

11 : 7 but your eyes have seen all the great work of Jehovah which he did.

11 : 8 Therefore ye shall keep all the commandment which I command thee this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, where ye go over to possess it,

11 : 9 and that ye may prolong your days in the land, which Jehovah swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey.

11 : 10 For the land, where thou go in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from where ye came out, where thou sowed thy seed, and watered it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs,

11 : 11 but the land, where ye go over to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water from the rain of heaven,

11 : 12 a land which Jehovah thy God cares for. The eyes of Jehovah thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.

11 : 13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently to my commandments which I command you this day, to love Jehovah your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

11 : 14 that I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that thou may gather in thy grain, and thy new wine, and thine oil.

11 : 15 And I will give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, and thou shall eat and be full.

11 : 16 Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them,

11 : 17 and the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he shut up the heavens, so that there shall be no rain, and the land shall not yield its fruit, and ye perish quickly from off the good land which Jehovah gives you.

11 : 18 Therefore ye shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul. And ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.

11 : 19 And ye shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when thou sit in thy house, and when thou walk by the way, and when thou lie down, and when thou rise up.

11 : 20 And thou shall write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates,

11 : 21 that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your sons, in the land which Jehovah swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens above the earth.

11 : 22 For if ye shall diligently keep all this commandment which I command you, to do it, to love Jehovah your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cling to him,

11 : 23 then will Jehovah drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves.

11 : 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours, from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the hinder sea shall be your border.

11 : 25 There shall no man be able to stand before you. Jehovah your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he has spoken to you.

11 : 26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse:

11 : 27 the blessing, if ye shall hearken to the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I command you this day,

11 : 28 and the curse, if ye shall not hearken to the commandments of Jehovah your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

11 : 29 And it shall come to pass, when Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land where thou go to possess it, that thou shall set the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.

11 : 30 Are they not beyond the Jordan, behind the way of the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?

11 : 31 For ye are to pass over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which Jehovah your God gives you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell in it.

11 : 32 And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and the ordinances which I set before you this day.