Deuteronomy
Chapter 8
1 Follow all the commands I give you today so you can live, grow, and take over the land God promised to your ancestors.
2 Remember how God guided you through the wilderness for forty years, to humble and test you, and to see if you would follow His commands.
3 God made you humble, let you feel hunger, and gave you manna to eat, a food you and your ancestors didn’t know. This was to teach you that people don’t live by bread alone, but by everything God says.
4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.
5 You should also think to yourself that just as a father disciplines his child, so God disciplines you.
6 So you must follow God’s commands, live as He wants, and respect Him.
7 God is bringing you into a good land with streams, springs, and deep waters that flow in the valleys and hills.
8 A land with wheat, barley, grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land with olive oil and honey.
9 A place where you will eat bread without shortage, you will not lack anything; a place with iron stones and hills where you can dig out copper.
10 When you have eaten and are full, then you should thank God for the good land he has given you.
11 Be careful not to forget God by not following his commands, rules, and laws that I give you today.
12 Be careful not to forget God when you have eaten your fill, built nice homes, and live in them.
13 When your herds and flocks grow, and your silver and gold increase, and everything you own increases;
14 Then your heart may become proud, and you forget God who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery.
15 Who guided you through the vast and scary desert with poisonous snakes and scorpions, and where there was no water; who made water come out of the hard rock for you;
16 God fed you in the desert with manna, unknown to your ancestors, to humble you and test you, to ultimately benefit you in the end.
17 And you think in your heart, My strength and the power of my hand have earned me this wealth.
18 Remember God, because He gives you the strength to become wealthy, so that He can keep the promise He made to your ancestors, just as it is today.
19 If you forget God, follow other gods, serve and worship them, I warn you today that you will certainly be destroyed.
20 Just like the countries God destroys before you, you too will die if you don’t listen to God’s voice.