8 Be conscientious about carrying out the entire body of commands that I am giving you today so that you may thrive and increase and you may go in and possess the land that the Lord promised by oath to give to your fathers. 2 Remember the whole journey on which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you and to test you, in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 So he humbled you and allowed you to be hungry. Then he fed you manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known before, in order to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 The clothes you wore did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5 So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore you are to keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by revering him.
7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of gullies filled with water, a land with springs and groundwater that flows out into the valleys and down the mountains, 8 a land with wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees for oil, and honey,[a] 9 a land where you can eat bread and not be poor, where you will not lack anything, a land whose rocks are iron and from whose mountains you can mine copper.
10 Then you will eat, and you will be filled, and you will praise the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. 11 Be very careful so that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and ordinances and his statutes that I am commanding you today. 12 When you eat and are satisfied, and you build nice houses and move into them, 13 and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and everything that you have prospers, 14 watch out so that your heart does not become arrogant and forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. 15 Do not forget the Lord, who led you in the great and terrifying wilderness, where there were venomous snakes and scorpions, where the thirsty ground had no water, but the Lord made water come out of a flint rock for you. 16 Do not forget the Lord, who in the wilderness fed you manna, which your fathers had not known before, to humble you and to test you so that it would be good for you later on.
17 You might say in your heart, “My ability and the power of my hand have earned this wealth for me.” 18 But then you are to remember that the Lord your God is the one who gives you the ability to produce wealth, to confirm his covenant that he promised to your fathers with an oath, as he does to this day.
19 But if you ever do forget the Lord your God and you follow other gods, and if you serve them and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will certainly perish. 20 Just like the nations that the Lord is about to destroy in front of you, you also will perish, because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 8:8 Dvash includes bee honey and sweet fruit syrup.