Hello, this is Father Paul and I am glad we are taking this journey together to read the
Bible in a year.
Today's reading is from Deuteronomy chapters 8-11.
Chapter 8
Every commandment which I command you today, you must be careful to observe that you may
live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers.
And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years
in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether
you would keep His commandments or not.
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know,
nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread
alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.
You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens
you.
Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways
and to fear Him.
For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of
fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of
vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land in which you
will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones
are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good
land which He has given you.
Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments
and His statutes which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and
have built beautiful houses and dwell in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply
and your silver and your gold are multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, when
your heart is lifted up and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land
of Egypt from the house of bondage, who led you through that great and terrible wilderness
in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water,
who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna
which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you to do
good in the end.
When you say in your heart, My power and the might of My hand have gained me this wealth,
and you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth,
that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers as it is this day.
Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and
serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish,
as the nations which the LORD destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would
not be obedient to the voice of the LORD your God.
Chapter 9 Here, O Israel, you are to cross over the
Jordan today, and go in to dispossessed nations greater and mightier than yourself, said he
is great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim,
whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, who can stand before the descendants of Anak.
Therefore, understand today that the LORD your God is He who goes over before you as
a consuming fire, He will destroy them and bring them down before you, so you shall drive
them out and destroy them quickly as the LORD has said to you.
Do not think in your heart after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying,
before of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.
But it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out
from before you.
It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go
in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD
your God drives them out from before you, and that he may fulfill the word which the
LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess
because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
Remember, do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness,
from the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place.
You have been rebellious against the LORD.
Also in Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry enough with you
to have destroyed you.
When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant
which the LORD made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
I neither ate bread nor drank water.
Then the LORD delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and
on them were all the words which the LORD has spoken to you on the mountain from the
midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that the LORD gave me the
two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
Then the LORD said to me, Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought
out of Egypt have acted corruptly.
They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them.
They have made themselves a moulded image.
Furthermore the LORD spoke to me, saying, I have seen these people, and indeed they
are a stiff-necked people.
Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will
make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.
So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire, and the
two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God, had made for yourselves
a moulded calf.
You had turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded you.
Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands and broke them before your
eyes.
And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first forty days and forty nights I neither
ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly
in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
For I was afraid of the anger and heart displeasure with which the LORD was angry with you, to
destroy you.
But the LORD listened to me at that time also, and the LORD was very angry with Aaron and
would have destroyed him, so I prayed for Aaron also at that time.
Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed
it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust.
And I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.
Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hatava you provoked the LORD to wrath.
Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kaddish Barnea saying, Go up and possess the land
which I have given you, then you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God,
and you did not believe him nor obey his voice.
You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.
Thus I prostrated myself before the LORD, forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself,
because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
Therefore I prayed to the LORD and said, O LORD God, do not destroy your people and your
inheritance whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out
of Egypt with a mighty hand.
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Do not look on the stubbornness of these people, or on their wickedness, or their sin.
Lest the land from which you brought us should say, Because the LORD was not able to bring
them to the land which you promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought
them out to kill them in the wilderness.
Yet they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your mighty power
and by your outstretched arm.
Chapter 10 At that time the LORD said to me, Hew for
yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make
yourself an ark of wood.
And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke,
and you shall put them in the ark.
So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went
up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand.
And he wrote on the tablets according to the first writing the Ten Commandments, which
the LORD had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the
assembly, and the LORD gave them to me.
Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I had
made, and there they are, just as the LORD commanded me.
Now the children of Israel journeyed from the wells of Bene-Jakkan to Moserah where
Aaron died, and where he was buried, and Eliezer his son ministered as priest in his stead.
From there they journeyed to Gudgoda, from Gudgoda to Jodbatah, a land of rivers of water.
At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of
the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister to him and to bless in his name to this day.
Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren, the LORD is his inheritance,
just as the LORD your God promised him.
As at the first time I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights, the LORD also
heard me at that time, and the LORD chose not to destroy you.
Then the LORD said to me, Arise, begin your journey before the people, that they may go
in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.
And now Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you?
But to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, to serve the
LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments
of the LORD and his statutes which I commanded you today for your good.
Indeed, heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with
all that is in it.
The LORD delighted only in your fathers to love them, and he chose their descendants
after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer.
For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,
who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.
He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving
him food and clothing.
Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
You shall fear the LORD your God, you shall serve him, and to him you shall hold fast
and take oath in his name.
He is your praise and he is your God, which has done for you these great and awesome things
which your eyes have seen.
Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made
you as the stars of heaven in multitude.
Chapter 11 Therefore you shall love the LORD your God
and keep his charge, his statutes, his judgments, and his commandments always.
Know today that I do not speak with your children who have not known and who have not seen the
chastening of the LORD your God, his greatness and his mighty hand and his outstretched arm,
his signs and his acts which he did in the midst of Egypt, the Pharaoh King of Egypt,
and to all his land.
What he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots, how he made the
waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the LORD has destroyed
them to this day.
What he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place, and what he did to
the than and Abiram the sons of Eliab the son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth
and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was in their
possession.
In the midst of all Israel, but your eyes have seen every great act of the LORD which
he did.
Therefore, you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be
strong and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, and that you may
prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to give your fathers, to them and their
descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have
come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot as a vegetable garden.
But the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks
water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the LORD your God cares.
The eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the
very end of the year.
And it shall be that if you earnestly obey my commandments which I command you today
to love the LORD your God and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, then
I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter
rain that you may gather in your grain, your new wine and your oil.
And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock that you may eat and be filled.
Take heed to yourselves lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other
gods and worship them, lest the LORD's anger be aroused against you.
And he shut up the heavens so that there be no rain and the land yield no produce, and
you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you.
Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul and bind
them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you
walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your
days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore
to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.
For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do, to love the LORD
your God, to walk in all his ways, and to hold fast to him, then the LORD will drive
out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations
than yourselves.
Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours, from the wilderness
and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the western sea, shall be your territory.
No man shall be able to stand against you.
The LORD your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where
you tread, just as he has said to you.
Behold, I said before you today a blessing and a curse, the blessing if you obey the
commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today, and a curse if you do not
obey the commandments of the LORD your God but turn aside from the way which I command
you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.
Now it shall be when the LORD your God has brought you into the land which you go to
possess that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.
Are they not, on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun in the land of the
Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terabint tree of Moray?
For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess the land which the LORD your
God is giving you, and you will possess it and dwell in it.
And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which I said before
you today.
I hope you enjoyed today's reading as much as I did and I look forward to seeing you
again tomorrow to continue on our journey.
God bless you and have a great day.