Deuteronomy 6

1 “These are the commandments and rules and regulations that Yahweh our God commanded me to teach to you. He wants you to obey them in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.

Now these are the orders and the laws and the decisions which the Lord your God gave me for your teaching, so that you might do them in the land of your heritage to which you are going:

2 He wants you to revere him, and he wants you and your descendants to always obey all these rules and regulations that I am giving to you, in order that you may live for a long time.

So that living in the fear of the Lord your God, you may keep all his laws and his orders, which I give you: you and your son and your son's son, all the days of your life; and so that your life may be long.

3 So, you Israeli people, listen to them carefully and obey them. If you do that, things will go well with you, and you will become a nation with a very large population when you are living in that very fertile [IDM] land. That is what Yahweh, the God whom our ancestors [worshiped], promised [would happen].

So give ear, O Israel, and take care to do this; so that it may be well for you, and you may be greatly increased, as the Lord the God of your fathers has given you his word, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

4 “You Israeli people, listen! Only Yahweh is our God.

Give ear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord:

5 You must love him with all your inner being and with all that you feel and with all that you do.

And the Lord your God is to be loved with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

6 Never forget [IDM] these commands that I am giving to you today.

Keep these words, which I say to you this day, deep in your hearts;

7 Teach them to your children again and again. Talk about them [all the time]: When you are in your houses and when you are walking outside; talk about them when you are lying down and when you are doing things.

Teaching them to your children with all care, talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up.

8 [Write them on tiny scrolls and] fasten them to your arms/wrists, and write them on bands that you fasten to your foreheads [to help you to remember them].

Let them be fixed as a sign on your hand, and marked on your brow;

9 Write them on the doorposts and on the gates of your houses.

Have them lettered on the pillars of your houses and over the doors of your towns.

10 “Yahweh our God vowed to your ancestors Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that he will give you a land that already has in it large and prosperous cities that you did not build.

And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land which he gave his oath to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you; with great and fair towns which were not of your building;

11 He said that the houses in those cities will already be full of many good things that [others put there]; you did not put them there. There will be wells that others have dug. There will be vineyards and olive trees that others planted. So when Yahweh brings you into that land, and you have all that you want to eat,

And houses full of good things not stored up by you, and places for storing water which you did not make, and vine-gardens and olive-trees not of your planting; and you have taken food and are full;

12 be sure that you do not forget Yahweh who rescued you from being slaves [in Egypt and gave all these things to you].

Then take care that you keep your hearts true to the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.

13 “You must revere Yahweh our God, and you must serve only him and say that he should [MTY] punish you if you do not do what you have promised.

Let the fear of the Lord your God be in your hearts, and be his servants, taking your oaths by his name.

14 You must not worship any other gods, the gods that the people-groups who will live near you worship.

Do not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about you;

15 Yahweh our God, who lives among you, (will not accept/will punish) people who worship anyone or anything else. So if you worship any other god, Yahweh will be very angry with you, and he will get rid of you completely.

For the Lord your God who is with you is a God who will not let his honour be given to another; or the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, causing your destruction from the face of the earth.

16 Do not do sinful things to find out if you can do them without Yahweh our God punishing you, like your ancestors did at Massah.

Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did in Massah.

17 Be sure that you always obey all the laws, the commandments, the rules, and the regulations that he has given to you.

Keep with care the orders of the Lord your God, and his rules and his laws which he has given you;

18 Do what Yahweh says is right and good. If you do that, things will go well with you. You will be able to enter and occupy the good/fertile land that Yahweh vowed to give to our ancestors.

And do what is upright and good in the eyes of the Lord your God, so that it may be well for you and you may go in and take for your heritage that good land from which the Lord undertook by an oath to your fathers,

19 He will do that by expelling your enemies from that land, just like he promised to do.

To send out from before you all those who are against you.

20 “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘Why did Yahweh our God command us to obey all these rules and regulations?’

And when your son says to you in time to come, What is the reason for these rules and laws and decisions which the Lord our God has given you?

21 tell them, ‘Our ancestors were slaves of the king in Egypt, but Yahweh brought them out of Egypt by his great power [MTY].

Then you will say to your son, We were servants under Pharaoh's yoke in Egypt; and the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand:

22 They saw him do many kinds of miracles [DOU] and do terrifying things to the people of Egypt and to the king and his officials.

And the Lord did great signs and wonders against Egypt, and against Pharaoh and all his house, before our eyes:

23 He rescued our ancestors from Egypt and brought them here to give them this land, just like he vowed that he would do.

And he took us out from that place, guiding us here to give us this land, as he said in his oath to our fathers.

24 And he commanded us to obey all these laws and to revere him, for our own good and in order that he would protect our nation and enable us to prosper, as he is doing now.

And the Lord gave us orders to keep all these laws, in the fear of the Lord our God, so that it might be well for us for ever, and that he might keep us from death, as he has done to this day.

25 Yahweh our God will (approve of us/consider us to be righteous) if we carefully obey everything that he has commanded us to do.’”

And it will be our righteousness if we take care to keep all this order before the Lord our God as he has given it to us.