Open English Translation DEU Chapter 8

8 You must consistently follow the instructions that I’m giving you today, so that you all can enter and occupy the land that Yahweh promised to your ancestors, and live there and multiply. 2 Remember the way that your god Yahweh led you these forty years in the wilderness in order to humble you—to test you to know whether or not you were sincere about obeying his instructions. 3 He humbled you by making you hungry and feeding you some stuff that neither you nor your ancestors had heard of, in order to teach you that people don’t just need food, but can only properly live by following what Yahweh says.[ref] 4 For the entire forty years, your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t swell up from walking in the desert. 5 Don’t forget that your god Yahweh disciplines you, just like a human father disciplines his children. 6 So follow your god Yahweh’s instructions. Live how he’s told you, and always honour him 7 because he’s bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and fountains, and springs both in the valleys and in the hills. 8 It’s a land with wheat and barley, grapevines and fig trees, pomegranates and olive trees, and honey—9 a land with plenty of food where you won’t lack anything. There’s iron in the rocks, and copper in the hills. 10 You’ll eat and be full, and you’ll thank your god Yahweh for the good land that he’s given you.

11 Be careful not to forget your god Yahweh by failing to follow his instructions and rules and regulations that I’m telling you today.[ref] 12 Watch out when you eat and feel satisfied, and you’ve built good houses and are living in them, 13 and your herds and flocks have increased, and you’ve accumulated gold and silver, and everything you have has multiplied. 14 That’s when it would be easy to become proud and forget your god Yahweh who brought you out of slavery in Egypt. 15 He led you through that vast, treacherous wilderness—the home of poisonous snakes and scorpions, and desert land without water, then he made water flow out of solid rock. 16 He fed you stuff in the wilderness that your ancestors had never heard of, so that he could humble you yet eventually cause you to prosper 17 without thinking to yourselves that your wealth came from your own strength and ability. 18 Remember that it’s your god Yahweh who gives you the strength to prosper, so that he can fulfill his agreement that he promised to your ancestors, as he has until now. 19 However, if you end up forgetting about your god Yahweh and start following other gods and serving them and bowing down to them, I can assure you that you’ll most definitely be destroyed. 20 If you don’t listen to what your god Yahweh says, then you’ll be destroyed just like the other people groups that he’s destroyed ahead of you all.