Deuteronomy 8

Modern English Version

Remember the Lord Your God

8 You must carefully keep all the commandments that I am commanding you today, so that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers. ² You must remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. ³ He humbled you and let you suffer hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell these forty years. ⁵ You must also consider in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

⁶ Therefore you must keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. ⁷ 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, ⁸ a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, ⁹ a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper.

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. ¹¹ Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I am commanding you today. ¹² Otherwise, when you have eaten and are full and have built and occupied good houses, ¹³ and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, ¹⁴ then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, ¹⁵ who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, where there were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water, who brought forth for you water out of the rock of flint, ¹⁶ who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might prove you, to do good for you in the end. ¹⁷ Otherwise, you may say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” ¹⁸ But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to get wealth, so that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is today.

¹⁹ If you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, then I testify against you today that you will surely perish. ²⁰ Just like the nations which the Lord will destroy before you, so shall you perish because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.