Deuteronomy, 8

1. "Be careful to observe all the commandments I enjoin on you today, that you may live and increase, and may enter in and possess the land which the LORD promised on oath to your fathers.

1. 'You must keep and put into practice all the commandments which I enjoin on you today, so that you may survive and increase in numbers and enter the country which Yahweh promised on oath to your ancestors, and make it your own.

2. Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments.

2. Remember the long road by which Yahweh your God led you for forty years in the desert, to humble you, to test you and know your inmost heart -- whether you would keep his commandments or not.

3. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.

3. He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that human beings live not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of Yahweh.

4. The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years.

4. The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet were not swollen, all those forty years.

5. So you must realize that the LORD, your God, disciplines you even as a man disciplines his son.

5. 'Learn from this that Yahweh your God was training you as a man trains his child,

6. "Therefore, keep the commandments of the LORD, your God, by walking in his ways and fearing him.

6. and keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and so follow his ways and fear him.

7. For the LORD, your God, is bringing you into a good country, a land with streams of water, with springs and fountains welling up in the hills and valleys,

7. 'But Yahweh your God is bringing you into a fine country, a land of streams and springs, of waters that well up from the deep in valleys and hills,

8. a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, of olive trees and of honey,

8. a land of wheat and barley, of vines, of figs, of pomegranates, a land of olives, of oil, of honey,

9. a land where you can eat bread without stint and where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones contain iron and in whose hills you can mine copper.

9. a land where you will eat bread without stint, where you will want nothing, a land where the stones are iron and where the hills may be quarried for copper.

10. But when you have eaten your fill, you must bless the LORD, your God, for the good country he has given you.

10. You will eat and have all you want and you will bless Yahweh your God in the fine country which he has given you.

11. Be careful not to forget the LORD, your God, by neglecting his commandments and decrees and statutes which I enjoin on you today:

11. 'Be careful not to forget Yahweh your God, by neglecting his commandments, customs and laws which I am laying down for you today.

12. lest, when you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses and lived in them,

12. When you have eaten all you want, when you have built fine houses to live in,

13. and have increased your herds and flocks, your silver and gold, and all your property,

13. when you have seen your flocks and herds increase, your silver and gold abound and all your possessions grow great,

14. you then become haughty of heart and unmindful of the LORD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery;

14. do not become proud of heart. Do not then forget Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the place of slave-labour,

15. who guided you through the vast and terrible desert with its saraph serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock

15. who guided you through this vast and dreadful desert, a land of fiery snakes, scorpions, thirst;

16. and fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers, that he might afflict you and test you, but also make you prosperous in the end.

16. who in this waterless place brought you water out of the flinty rock; who in this desert fed you with manna unknown to your ancestors, to humble you and test you and so make your future the happier.

17. Otherwise, you might say to yourselves, 'It is my own power and the strength of my own hand that has obtained for me this wealth.'

17. 'Beware of thinking to yourself, "My own strength and the might of my own hand have given me the power to act like this."

18. Remember then, it is the LORD, your God, who gives you the power to acquire wealth, by fulfilling, as he has now done, the covenant which he swore to your fathers.

18. Remember Yahweh your God; he was the one who gave you the strength to act effectively like this, thus keeping then, as today, the covenant which he swore to your ancestors.

19. But if you forget the LORD, your God, and follow other gods, serving and worshiping them, I forewarn you this day that you will perish utterly.

19. Be sure: if you forget Yahweh your God, if you follow other gods, if you serve them and bow down to them -- I testify to you today -- you will perish.

20. Like the nations which the LORD destroys before you, so shall you too perish for not heeding the voice of the LORD, your God.

20. Like the nations Yahweh is to destroy before you, so you yourselves will perish, for not having listened to the voice of Yahweh your God.'