Deu 6 | EE | STEP | These are all the rules. The LORD your God told me to teach them to you. You must obey them when you live in your own country across the River Jordan.

Deuteronomy 6

Love the LORD your God!

1 These are all the rules. The LORD your God told me to teach them to you. You must obey them when you live in your own country across the River Jordan. 2 You and your children and your grandchildren must be afraid to make the LORD your God angry. You must obey all his rules as long as you live. If you do that, you will enjoy a long life. 3 Listen, Israelites! Be careful to obey God’s rules. If you do that, everything will be well for you. Your groups of families will become very large, in a country full of good food and drink. The LORD, the God of your fathers, promised that this will happen.

4 Listen, Israelites! The LORD our God is one LORD. 5 Love the LORD your God with all of your mind and your thoughts. Make him the most important person in your lives. Think about him every day. 6 Remember with love all these rules that I give to you today. 7 Teach them and explain them every day to your children. Talk about them when you sit at home. Talk about them when you walk along the road. Repeat them when you lie down. Repeat them when you get up. 8 Tie them like signs on your hands and round your heads. 9 Write them over the doors of your houses and on your gates. ^{▼▼6:9 The parents must teach their children to love God. If they do that, the children will learn to obey him.}

10 The LORD your God is bringing you into the country that he promised to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This country has large, busy cities that you did not build. 11 There are houses there full of good things that you did not put into them. There are wells of water that you did not dig. There are fields of grapes and olives that you did not plant. You can eat as much as you want. 12 But be careful that you do not forget the LORD. He brought you out of Egypt where you were slaves.

13 You must be afraid to make the LORD your God angry. And you must obey him only. Make all your promises by his authority. 14 Do not obey the other gods of the people who live round you. 15 The LORD your God lives among you. It is very important to him that you love only him. You must not love other gods. If you do love them, you will make him very angry with you. And then he will kill you. That will happen if you obey other gods. 16 Do not make the LORD your God angry with you as you did at Massah. 17 Be careful! Obey the rules of the LORD your God. Obey all that he says to you. 18 Do what is right and good. And give pleasure to the LORD. If you do that, all will be well with you. And you will be able to go into the good country. The LORD promised this country to your ancestors. 19 He will help you to beat all your enemies, as he has said.

20 Some day your son may say to you, ‘The LORD our God has given you all these rules and decrees. But what do they mean?’

21 Then you must tell him this: ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. But the LORD is very powerful and he brought us out of Egypt. 22 We watched him do great and powerful things to Egypt. And he did them to Pharaoh and to the people who lived in his house. 23 But the LORD brought us out of Egypt. He led us into this country and he gave it to us. He did this because he made a serious promise to our ancestors. 24 The LORD told us that we should obey all these rules. If you do that, we will always do well. And we will continue to live. This is happening to us today. 25 We must be careful to obey all the rules of the LORD our God. When we do this, we become good people. Everything that we do will be right.’