< Deuteronomy 26 >
1 “And it has been, when you come into the land which your God YHWH is giving to you [for] an inheritance, and you have possessed it and dwelt in it,
2 that you have taken from the first of all the fruits of the ground, which you bring in out of your land which your God YHWH is giving to you, and have put [it] in a basket, and gone to the place which your God YHWH chooses to cause His Name to dwell there.
3 And you have come to the priest who is in those days, and have said to him, I have declared to your God YHWH today that I have come into the land which YHWH has sworn to our fathers to give to us;
4 and the priest has taken the basket out of your hand and placed it before the altar of your God YHWH.
5 And you have answered and said before your God YHWH, My father [is] a perishing Aramean! And he goes down to Egypt, and sojourns there with few men, and becomes a great, mighty, and populous nation there;
6 and the Egyptians do us evil, and afflict us, and put hard service on us;
7 and we cry to YHWH, God of our fathers, and YHWH hears our voice, and sees our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression;
8 and YHWH brings us out from Egypt by a strong hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great fear, and by signs, and by wonders,
9 and He brings us to this place, and gives this land to us—a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 And now, behold, I have brought in the first of the fruits of the ground which you have given to me, O YHWH. (And you have placed it before your God YHWH, and bowed yourself before your God YHWH,
11 and rejoiced in all the good which your God YHWH has given to you and to your house—you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who [is] in your midst.)
12 When you complete to tithe all the tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of the tithe, then you have given to the Levite, to the sojourner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, and they have eaten within your gates and been satisfied,
13 and you have said before your God YHWH, I have put away the separated thing out of the house, and have also given it to the Levite, and to the sojourner, and to the orphan, and to the widow, according to all Your command which You have commanded me; I have not passed over from Your commands, nor have I forgotten.
14 I have not eaten of it in my affliction, nor have I put away of it for uncleanness, nor have I given of it for the dead; I have listened to the voice of my God YHWH; I have done according to all that You have commanded me;
15 look from Your holy habitation, from the heavens, and bless Your people Israel and the ground which You have given to us, as You have sworn to our fathers—a land flowing [with] milk and honey.
16 This day your God YHWH is commanding you to do these statutes and judgments; and you have listened and done them with all your heart and with all your soul.
17 Today you have proclaimed YHWH to be to you for God, that [you are] to walk in His ways, and to keep His statutes, and His commands, and His judgments, and to listen to His voice.
18 And today YHWH has proclaimed you to be to Him for a people, a peculiar treasure, as He has spoken to you, that [you are] to keep all His commands,
19 so as to make you highest above all the nations whom He has made for a praise, and for a name, and for beauty, and for your being a holy people to your God YHWH, as He has spoken.”
