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The Great Commandment

Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the L ord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, ²so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the L ord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. ³Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the L ord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The L ord is our God, the L ord alone. ⁵You shall love the L ord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Caution against Disobedience

¹⁰ When the L ord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, ¹¹houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill, ¹²take care that you do not forget the L ord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ¹³The L ord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear. ¹⁴Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you, ¹⁵because the L ord your God, who is present with you, is a jealous God. The anger of the L ord your God would be kindled against you and he would destroy you from the face of the earth.

¹⁶ Do not put the L ord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. ¹⁷You must diligently keep the commandments of the L ord your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded you. ¹⁸Do what is right and good in the sight of the L ord, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that the L ord swore to your ancestors to give you, ¹⁹thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the L ord has promised.

²⁰ When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the L ord our God has commanded you?” ²¹then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the L ord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²²The L ord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household. ²³He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors. ²⁴Then the L ord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the L ord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case. ²⁵If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the L ord our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.”

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.

13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God. Hence it is more evident why He has just declared that there is One God, viz., that He alone may be undividedly worshipped; for unless our minds are fixed on Him alone, religion is torn, as it were, into divers parts, and this is soon followed by a labyrinth of errors. But, first, he calls for reverence, and then for the worship which may testify and demonstrate it. “Fear” contains in it the idea of subjection, when men devote themselves to God, because His terrible majesty keeps them in their proper place. Hence results worship, which is the proof of piety. But we must observe that the fear enjoined in this passage is voluntary, so that men influenced by it desire nothing more than to obey God. When I stated, therefore, that God brings us under the yoke by a sense of His power and greatness, I did not understand that a violent and servile obedience is extorted from us; I only wished to affirm that men cannot be induced to obey God, before they have been subdued by fear; because their innate corruption always carries with it a contempt for religion, and a spirit of licentiousness. Therefore, in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 5:22), in order to exhort men to fear, He sets forth His terrible power in restraining the strength of the sea; but this fear leads on His true worshippers further. In the other passage which we have subjoined from Deuteronomy 10, the word cleave again confirms the truth, that as soon as men decline from God in the least degree, His worship is corrupted. For this is the meaning of that union with Himself to which He calls His worshippers, that they should be, as it were, glued to Him, and should not look elsewhere.