Deuteronomy 8
Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone
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The Lesson of the Wilderness
8:1Take care to practice all the commandments I command you today, so that you may live, multiply, and enter and inherit the land the Lord your God swore to your fathers.
8:2Remember the whole road the Lord your God led you in the wilderness, to afflict you and test you, so that what was in your heart might become known, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
8:3He afflicted you, made you hunger, and fed you manna your fathers had not known, to declare to you that a human being will not live by bread alone, but a human being will live by every word proceeding through God's mouth.
8:4Your garments did not wear out upon you, and your feet did not become calloused—look, forty years.
8:5Know in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God will discipline you.
8:6Keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in His ways and fearing Him.
The Abundance of the Promised Land
8:7For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good and extensive land, with flowing water and springs from the depths issuing through the plains and hills,
8:8a land of wheat and barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey,
8:9a land where you will eat your bread without poverty and lack nothing, a land whose stones contain iron and from whose hills you will mine copper.
8:10You will eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord your God upon the good land He has given you.
The Warning Against Self-Sufficiency
8:11Be careful not to forget the Lord your God by failing to keep His commandments, judgments, and ordinances that I command you today,
8:12lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied, built good houses and lived in them,
8:13and your herds and flocks, silver and gold, and everything you possess have multiplied,
8:14you become proud in heart and forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,
8:15who led you through that great and fearsome wilderness, with biting serpents, scorpions, and thirst without water, who brought you a spring of water from a sheer rock,
8:16who fed you manna in the wilderness that your fathers had not known, to afflict you and test you, to do you good in the latter part of your days.
8:17Do not say in your heart: My strength and the might of my hand made this great wealth for me.
8:18Remember the Lord your God, for He gives you strength to produce wealth and so that He may establish His covenant, which the Lord swore to your fathers, as is the case today.
The Ultimatum of Forgetfulness
8:19If you forget the Lord your God, follow other gods, worship them, and bow down to them, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will surely perish.
8:20Like the other nations the Lord is destroying before you, so you will perish, because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.