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The Second Pair of Tablets10 At that time the L ord said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. 2I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark.” 3So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4Then he wrote on the tablets the same words as before, the ten commandments that the L ord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the L ord gave them to me. 5So I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark that I had made; and there they are, as the L ord commanded me. 6 (The Israelites journeyed from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; his son Eleazar succeeded him as priest. 7From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with flowing streams. 8At that time the L ord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the L ord, to stand before the L ord to minister to him, and to bless in his name, to this day. 9Therefore Levi has no allotment or inheritance with his kindred; the L ord is his inheritance, as the L ord your God promised him.) 10 I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the L ord listened to me. The L ord was unwilling to destroy you. 11The L ord said to me, “Get up, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and occupy the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.” The Essence of the Law12 So now, O Israel, what does the L ord your God require of you? Only to fear the L ord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the L ord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to keep the commandments of the L ord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. 14Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the L ord your God, the earth with all that is in it, 15yet the L ord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. 16Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. 17For the L ord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. 19You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20You shall fear the L ord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. 21He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. 22Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the L ord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven. 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
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21. He is thy praise. That he may the more easily persuade his countrymen that nothing is better, or more desirable for them than to devote themselves to God’s service, Moses reminds them that they have nothing to boast of out of Him; as if he had said, that they were happy in this one respect, that God had taken them under His charge; but that if this glory were to be taken away, they would be miserable and ruined. For God is called “the praise” of His people, as being their honor and their ornament. Consequently, if they desire to enjoy true and solid blessedness, they must take care to keep themselves under His guardianship; for, if they should be deprived of this, nothing would remain to them but ignominy and shame. To the same effect, he adds, that He is their God; because nothing can be more perverse and absurd than not to receive the Creator of the world Himself, when He freely offers Himself as our God. In proof of this, he subjoins, that He has exerted His power in many miracles for His people’s safety; and, in order that they might be rendered the more inexcusable, he cites their own eyes as witnesses of so many mighty acts which had been wrought in their favor. Thence he goes a step higher, (reminding them,252252 Added from the French. ) that their race had been wondrously increased in a short time; whence it was plain, that they had been thus incredibly multiplied by preternatural and divine influence. For assuredly the signal blessing of God was clearly manifested, in the procreation of seven hundred thousand men in less than two hundred and fifty years.253253 D’un si petit hombre des gens. — Fr. Those who then lived had not seen them with their own eyes; but Moses retraces God’s grace to the fountainhead, that they may more fully acknowledge, that whatever good they had experienced depended on that adoption, which had made them God’s people. |