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God’s Fidelity Assured30 When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the L ord your God has driven you, 2and return to the L ord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, 3then the L ord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the L ord your God has scattered you. 4Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the L ord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. 5The L ord your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. 6 Moreover, the L ord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the L ord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live. 7The L ord your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on the adversaries who took advantage of you. 8Then you shall again obey the L ord, observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, 9and the L ord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the L ord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, 10when you obey the L ord your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the L ord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Exhortation to Choose Life11 Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. 12It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” 13Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” 14No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. 15 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16If you obey the commandments of the L ord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the L ord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the L ord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 17But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20loving the L ord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the L ord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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15. See, I have set before thee this day. A solemn injunction, similar to the foregoing ones, that the Israelites should consider how inestimable a blessing it was that God should have condescended to deposit His Law with them; and that if they did not receive it with reverence, the punishments for such foul ingratitude would be by no means light. For, in order to deprive them of the pretext of error, He separates them from the heathen nations, which through ignorance of the right way vacillated, as in uncertainty, between life and death. He says, therefore, that He has set before their eyes life, and that indeed connected with true and complete happiness; and likewise death with its consequences. Now, there is no one who, under the guidance of nature, would not seek for life and recoil from death; and thence Moses reproaches them with being more than senseless if they should plunge voluntarily into all miseries. Meanwhile, he signifies that he is not addressing to them mere idle menaces, but that his doctrine is armed with the power of God, so that whosoever should embrace it would find salvation in it, whilst none would despise it with impunity. The distribution of the two clauses then follows, viz., that the love of God and the keeping of His Law is prescribed that they may live; but if they turn away from it, their destruction is denounced. It is not, then, without reason that I have called the promises and threats the Sanctions of the Law, because, in order that its authority may be assured to us, it is necessary that both the recompence of obedience, and also the punishment of transgression, should be set before us. By the worship of other gods, he means every revolt from God, as I have observed already. He does not speak of their being “drawn away” to superstition as an excuse for their instability, but rather as an aggravation of their crime, inasmuch as they are carried away by their depraved desires, 287287 Addition in Fr., “comme d’un tourbillon;” as by a whirlpool. and thus desert the truth of God when well acquainted with it. |