עקב

Moses spoke to Israel and said that if they listened to God’s rules and kept the covenant, God would keep the promise made to their ancestors. In the land ahead, God would bless their families, their fields, and their animals. God would keep sickness away and would not bring back the dreadful diseases they remembered from Egypt.

Moses knew some people were worried: “Those nations are more numerous than we are, how can we drive them out?” He answered, “Do not fear. Remember what God did to Pharaoh: the signs you saw, the mighty hand that brought you out.” God would push the nations back little by little.

He also reminded them of the wilderness. They had been hungry, and God gave them manna, food they had never known. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell for forty years. Moses said God guided them like a parent guiding a child, so they would walk in God’s ways.

Moses warned the people about what could happen when life got easier. “When you eat your fill and build fine houses, when your herds grow and your silver and gold increase, do not let your heart grow proud,” he said. “Do not say, ‘My own power won this wealth.’ Remember: God gives you the power to succeed.”

He described the good land ahead, streams and springs, wheat and barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olive trees and honey, even stones with iron and hills with copper. After eating, they were to give thanks.

Then Moses told a painful memory from Horeb. He had gone up the burning mountain for forty days and nights to receive the stone tablets. But the people quickly made a molten calf. Moses came down, saw it, and smashed the tablets. He fell before God again, fasting and praying, and God listened. Moses carved two new tablets and placed them in an ark of acacia wood.

Later, at Moserah, Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar became priest.

Moses asked, “What does God ask of you?” He answered: revere God, walk in God’s paths, love and serve God with all your heart and soul, and keep God’s commands. He used one Hebrew word, mitzvot, meaning God’s commandments, the deeds Israel was to do each day.

Moses reminded them that the heavens and the earth belong to God, yet God chose their ancestors in love. God shows no favoritism and takes no bribe, but defends the orphan and widow and cares for the stranger with food and clothing, so Israel must care for the stranger too, remembering Egypt.

He said the children about to enter the land had not seen everything, but the adults had: Egypt’s defeat, the Sea of Reeds, and the wilderness. The new land would not be watered like Egypt; it would drink rain from the sky, and God would watch over it all year.

If Israel served other gods, the skies could close and the ground would stop giving food. So Moses told them to keep these words close, teach them to their children, speak of them at home and on the road, and write them on their doorposts and gates. If they held fast to God, no one would stand against them, and their borders would stretch from the wilderness to Lebanon, from the Euphrates to the Western Sea.