EkevBecause

1Reading 1 Deuteronomy 7:12–8:10Chapter page with footnotes →

The Promises of God

^7:12And it shall be, because you hear these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep for you the covenant and the kindness which He swore to your fathers; ¹³and He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you; and He will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your fresh oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, upon the ground which He swore to your fathers to give to you. ¹⁴Blessed shall you be above all the peoples; there shall not be among you a male or female barren, or among your cattle.

¹⁵And the LORD will turn aside from you all sickness; and all the evil diseases of Egypt which you knew, He will not put upon you, but will put them upon all who hate you. ¹⁶And you shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God is giving to you; your eye shall not pity them, and you shall not serve their gods, for it is a snare to you.

¹⁷If you say in your heart: These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? — ¹⁸you shall not be afraid of them; you shall surely remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, ¹⁹the great trials which your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders, and the strong hand and the outstretched arm, whereby the LORD your God brought you out; so will the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

²⁰And moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left and those who hide themselves from before you perish. ²¹You shall not be terrified before them; for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.

²²And the LORD your God will cast out those nations before you little by little; you will not be able to consume them quickly, lest the living thing of the field increase upon you. ²³And the LORD your God will give them up before you, and confound them with a great confusion, until they are destroyed. ²⁴And He will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the heavens; no man will stand before you, until you have destroyed them.

²⁵The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver and gold that is on them, and take it for yourself, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. ²⁶And you shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become a devoted thing like it; you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.

Remember the LORD Your God

^8:1All the commandment which I am commanding you this day you shall keep to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers. ²And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, to afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

³And He afflicted you, and let you hunger, and fed you the manna, which you did not know, neither did your fathers know; that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by all that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD does man live. ⁴Your garment did not wear out from upon you, and your foot did not swell, these forty years.

⁵And you shall know with your heart, that as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. ⁶And you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.

⁷For the LORD your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks of water, fountains and depths going forth in the valley and in the hill; ⁸A land of wheat and barley, and vine and fig and pomegranate, a land of olive oil and honey; ⁹A land in which you shall eat bread not in scarcity, you shall not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of its hills you shall dig copper. ¹⁰And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.

2Reading 2 Deuteronomy 8:11–9:3Chapter page with footnotes →

^8:11Beware lest you forget the LORD your God, in not keeping His commandments and His judgments and His statutes, which I am commanding you this day; ¹²Lest you eat and be satisfied, and build good houses and dwell in them, ¹³And your herd and your flock multiply, and silver and gold multiply for you, and all that you have multiplies, ¹⁴And your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves;

¹⁵Who led you through the great and dreadful wilderness, of serpent, fiery serpent, and scorpion, and drought where there is no water; who brought forth for you water out of the rock of flint; ¹⁶Who fed you manna in the wilderness, which your fathers did not know, to afflict you and to test you, to do you good in your latter end;

¹⁷And you say in your heart, "My power and the might of my hand has made for me this wealth." ¹⁸But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to make wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

¹⁹And it shall be, if you indeed forget the LORD your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and bow down to them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. ²⁰Like the nations which the LORD is making to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not listen to the voice of the LORD your God.

Assurance of Victory

^9:1Hear, O Israel: you are crossing over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to the heavens, ²A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard, "Who can stand before the sons of Anak?" ³And you shall know this day, that the LORD your God is He who crosses over before you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them, and He will subdue them before you; and you shall dispossess them, and make them perish quickly, as the LORD has spoken to you.

3Reading 3 Deuteronomy 9:4–29Chapter page with footnotes →

^9:4Do not say in your heart, when the LORD your God thrusts them out from before you, saying, "For my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land"; whereas for the wickedness of these nations the LORD is dispossessing them from before you.

⁵Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is dispossessing them from before you, and that He may establish the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ⁶And you shall know that not for your righteousness does the LORD your God give you this good land to possess it; for you are a stiff-necked people.

The Golden Calf

⁷Remember, do not forget, how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day that you went out from the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.

⁸And in Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was angry with you to destroy you. ⁹When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD cut with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; bread I did not eat and water I did not drink.

¹⁰And the LORD gave to me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was according to all the words which the LORD spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. ¹¹And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave to me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. ¹²And the LORD said to me, "Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out from Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten image."

¹³And the LORD said to me, saying, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. ¹⁴Let Me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they."

¹⁵So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were upon my two hands. ¹⁶And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf; you had quickly turned aside from the way which the LORD had commanded you. ¹⁷And I took hold of the two tablets, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.

¹⁸And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; bread I did not eat and water I did not drink; because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing the evil in the eyes of the LORD, to provoke Him. ¹⁹For I was afraid of the anger and the hot displeasure, with which the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.

²⁰And with Aaron the LORD was very angry, to destroy him; and I prayed also for Aaron at that time. ²¹And your sin which you had made, the calf, I took and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it well, until it was fine as dust; and I cast its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.

²²And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the LORD to wrath. ²³And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, "Go up and possess the land which I have given to you"; then you rebelled against the mouth of the LORD your God, and you did not believe Him, nor listen to His voice. ²⁴You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you. ²⁵So I fell down before the LORD the forty days and the forty nights that I fell down; because the LORD had said to destroy you.

²⁶And 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 from Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not turn to the stubbornness of this people, and to its wickedness, and to its sin; ²⁸Lest the land from which You brought us out say, 'Because the LORD was not able to bring them to the land which He spoke of to them, and because of His hatred of them, He brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.' ²⁹Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm."

4Reading 4 Deuteronomy 10:1–11Chapter page with footnotes →

New Stone Tablets

^10:1At that time the LORD said to me, "Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me into the mountain; and make for yourself an ark of wood. ²And 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."

³So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, and the two tablets were in my hand. ⁴And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the ten words, which the LORD spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. ⁵And I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the LORD commanded me.

⁶And the sons of Israel journeyed from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah; there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son served as priest in his stead. ⁷From there they journeyed to Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of brooks of water.

⁸At 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. ⁹Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brothers; the LORD is his inheritance, as the LORD your God spoke to him.

¹⁰And I stood on the mountain as the first days, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD listened to me that time also; the LORD was not willing to destroy you.

¹¹And the LORD said to me, "Arise, go on the journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them."

5Reading 5 Deuteronomy 10:12–11:9Chapter page with footnotes →

A Call to Obedience

^10:12And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul; ¹³To keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes, which I am commanding you this day for your good?

¹⁴Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, the earth, and all that is in it. ¹⁵Only in your fathers did the LORD delight, to love them, and He chose their seed after them, you, above all the peoples, as it is this day.

¹⁶And you shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and your neck you shall stiffen no more. ¹⁷For the LORD your God, He is the God of gods, and the Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the awesome, who does not lift up faces, nor take a bribe. ¹⁸He executes the judgment of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, to give him bread and a garment. ¹⁹And you shall love the stranger; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

²⁰The LORD your God you shall fear; Him you shall serve; and to Him you shall cleave, and by His name you shall swear. ²¹He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things, which your eyes have seen. ²²With seventy souls your fathers went down to Egypt; and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of the heavens for multitude.

Obedience and Discipline

^11:1And you shall love the LORD your God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, all the days.

²And you shall know this day — for not with your children who have not known and who have not seen — the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his strong hand, and his outstretched arm, ³and his signs, and his works which he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to all his land; ⁴and what he did to the army of Egypt, to its horses and to its chariot, when he made the waters of the Sea of Reeds to overflow over their faces as they pursued after you, and the LORD destroyed them to this day; ⁵and what he did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place; ⁶and what he did to Dathan and to Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was at their feet, in the midst of all Israel;

⁷but your eyes are those that have seen all the great work of the LORD which he did.

God’s Great Blessings

⁸And you shall keep all the commandment which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you are crossing over there to possess it; ⁹and that you may prolong your days upon the ground which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey.

6Reading 6 Deuteronomy 11:10–21Chapter page with footnotes →

^11:10For the land which you are going there to possess it is not like the land of Egypt from where you came out, where you would sow your seed and water it with your foot like a garden of herbs; ¹¹but the land which you are crossing over there to possess it is a land of mountains and valleys; from the rain of the heavens it drinks water; ¹²a land which the LORD your God seeks after; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually upon it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.

¹³And it shall come to pass, if you diligently hearken to my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴then I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, and your wine, and your oil. ¹⁵And I will give grass in your field for your cattle, and you shall eat and be satisfied.

¹⁶Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and bow down to them; ¹⁷and the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and he shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the ground not give its produce, and you perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD is giving to you.

Remember God’s Words

¹⁸And you shall set these my words upon your heart and upon your soul, and you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. ²⁰And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates; ²¹that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, upon the ground which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them, as the days of the heavens above the earth.

7Reading 7 Deuteronomy 11:22–25Chapter page with footnotes →

^11:22For if you diligently keep all this commandment which I command you to do it, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave to him, ²³then the LORD will dispossess all these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. ²⁴Every place where the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the hinder sea shall be your border. ²⁵No man shall stand before you; your dread and your fear the LORD your God shall set upon the face of all the land which you tread upon, as he has spoken to you.

PIsaiah 49:14–51:3Chapter page with footnotes →

^49:14But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me."

¹⁵Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

¹⁶Behold, on the palms of my hands I have graven you; your walls are continually before me.

¹⁷Your children make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go forth from you.

¹⁸Lift up your eyes round about and see: all of them gather together, they come to you. As I live, says the LORD, you shall surely clothe yourself with them all as with an ornament, and gird yourself with them like a bride.

¹⁹For your waste places and your desolate places and the land of your ruin — surely now you shall be too narrow for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up shall be far away.

²⁰Yet the children of your bereavement shall say in your ears, "The place is too narrow for me; make room for me that I may dwell."

²¹Then you shall say in your heart, "Who has begotten me these, seeing I was bereaved and barren, an exile and wandering? And who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where were they?"

²²Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and to the peoples I will raise up my standard; and they shall bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters shall be carried upon the shoulder.

²³And kings shall be your foster-fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers; with faces to the earth they shall bow down to you, and the dust of your feet they shall lick; and you shall know that I am the LORD, and those who wait for me shall not be ashamed."

²⁴Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captive of the righteous be delivered?

²⁵For thus says the LORD, "Even the captive of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant shall be delivered; and I myself will contend with him who contends with you, and I myself will save your children.

²⁶And I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, and as with sweet wine they shall be drunken with their own blood; and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."

Israel’s Sin

^50:1Thus says the LORD, "Where is this bill of your mother's divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.

²Why, when I came, was there no man, when I called, none answered? Is my hand at all too short to redeem? Or is there no power in me to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make rivers a wilderness; their fish stink for lack of water, and die of thirst.

³I clothe the heavens with blackness, and sackcloth I make their covering."

The Servant’s Obedience

⁴The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the taught, that I should know how to sustain with a word him who is weary; he awakens morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as the taught.

⁵The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn away backward.

⁶My back I gave to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair; my face I did not hide from shame and spitting.

⁷For the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.

⁸Near is he who justifies me; who will contend with me? Let us stand together; who is the master of my judgment? Let him come near to me.

⁹Behold, the Lord GOD helps me; who is he that shall condemn me? Behold, they all shall wear out like a garment; the moth shall eat them.

¹⁰Who among you fears the LORD, who obeys the voice of his servant? Though he walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in the name of the LORD and lean upon his God.

¹¹Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who gird yourselves with firebrands: walk in the light of your fire, and among the brands you have kindled. From my hand this has come to you: in sorrow you shall lie down.

Salvation for Zion

^51:1Hearken to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD; look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hollow of the pit from which you were dug.

²Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many.

³For the LORD has comforted Zion; he has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

AMatthew 4:1–4Chapter page with footnotes →

The Temptation of Yeshua

^4:1Then Yeshua was led up into the wilderness by the spirit to be tempted by the devil. ²And after fasting forty days and forty nights, He was afterward hungry.

³And the tempter came and said to Him: "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."

⁴But He answered and said: "It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds through the mouth of God.'"