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24 For the Lord, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God.[a](A)

God’s Fidelity and Love. 25 (B)When you have children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, should you then act corruptly by fashioning an idol in the form of anything, and by this evil done in his sight provoke the Lord, your God, 26 I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you, that you shall all quickly perish from the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You shall not live in it for any length of time but shall be utterly wiped out.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 4:24 A jealous God: Hebrew ’el qanna. The root of the adjective qanna expresses the idea of intense feeling focused on solicitude for someone or something; see, e.g., Ps 69:10; Sg 8:6; Is 9:6; 37:32; Ez 39:25. The Septuagint translated the adjective as zelotes, and the Vulgate followed suit; hence the traditional English rendering “jealous” (and sometimes “zealous”) found in the Douai-Rheims and King James versions. In modern usage, however, “jealous” denotes unreasonable, petty possessiveness, a meaning, even as nuance, wanting in the Hebrew. In the first commandment (5:6–10; Ex 20:2–6) and passages derived from it (like 4:24; 6:15; Ex 34:14; Jos 24:19; Na 1:2), Israel’s God is represented as totally committed to his purpose, and Israel is put on notice to take him and his directives for their life as a people with equal seriousness.

24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire,(A) a jealous God.(B)

25 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt(C) and make any kind of idol,(D) doing evil(E) in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, 26 I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses(F) against you(G) this day that you will quickly perish(H) from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.

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