Deuteronomy 6

1 “These are the commandments and rules and regulations that Yahweh our God commanded me to teach to you. He wants you to obey them in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.

These are the commandments and rules and regulations that the Lord your God has ordered me to teach you to follow in the country that you're going to enter and occupy.

2 He wants you to revere him, and he wants you and your descendants to always obey all these rules and regulations that I am giving to you, in order that you may live for a long time.

This is so you and your children and grandchildren will show respect to the Lord your God throughout your lives by keeping all his rules and regulations that I give you, and so that you may have a long life.

3 So, you Israeli people, listen to them carefully and obey them. If you do that, things will go well with you, and you will become a nation with a very large population when you are living in that very fertile [IDM] land. That is what Yahweh, the God whom our ancestors [worshiped], promised [would happen].

Listen, people of Israel, and be careful to observe them, so that you may do well and have many descendants in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your forefathers, promised you.

4 “You Israeli people, listen! Only Yahweh is our God.

Listen, people of Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is the only one.

5 You must love him with all your inner being and with all that you feel and with all that you do.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind and with all your being and with all your strength.

6 Never forget [IDM] these commands that I am giving to you today.

The commands I'm giving you today must stay in your minds.

7 Teach them to your children again and again. Talk about them [all the time]: When you are in your houses and when you are walking outside; talk about them when you are lying down and when you are doing things.

You are to explain them carefully to your children and talk about them when you're at home and when you're traveling, when you lie down and when you get up.

8 [Write them on tiny scrolls and] fasten them to your arms/wrists, and write them on bands that you fasten to your foreheads [to help you to remember them].

Tie them on your hands as reminders and put them on your foreheads as well.

9 Write them on the doorposts and on the gates of your houses.

Write them on the doorposts of your homes and on your gates.

10 “Yahweh our God vowed to your ancestors Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that he will give you a land that already has in it large and prosperous cities that you did not build.

The Lord your God is going to take you into the country he promised to give you and your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a country with large, prosperous towns that you didn't build,

11 He said that the houses in those cities will already be full of many good things that [others put there]; you did not put them there. There will be wells that others have dug. There will be vineyards and olive trees that others planted. So when Yahweh brings you into that land, and you have all that you want to eat,

with houses full of plenty of good things that you didn't provide, that have wells you didn't dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant. When you eat and are full

12 be sure that you do not forget Yahweh who rescued you from being slaves [in Egypt and gave all these things to you].

make sure you don't forget the Lord who led you out of Egypt, out of the prison-house of slavery.

13 “You must revere Yahweh our God, and you must serve only him and say that he should [MTY] punish you if you do not do what you have promised.

Respect the Lord your God only worship him, and only make promises in his name.

14 You must not worship any other gods, the gods that the people-groups who will live near you worship.

Don't worship any other gods, the gods of the peoples around you,

15 Yahweh our God, who lives among you, (will not accept/will punish) people who worship anyone or anything else. So if you worship any other god, Yahweh will be very angry with you, and he will get rid of you completely.

because the Lord your God, who lives among you, is an exclusive God, and Lord your God will become angry with you, and he will wipe you out.

16 Do not do sinful things to find out if you can do them without Yahweh our God punishing you, like your ancestors did at Massah.

Don't test the Lord your God like you did at Massah.

17 Be sure that you always obey all the laws, the commandments, the rules, and the regulations that he has given to you.

You must be careful to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and the laws and rules he's given you.

18 Do what Yahweh says is right and good. If you do that, things will go well with you. You will be able to enter and occupy the good/fertile land that Yahweh vowed to give to our ancestors.

Do what's good and right in the Lord's sight so that it will go well for you and that you may enter and take over the good land that the Lord your God promised to give your forefathers,

19 He will do that by expelling your enemies from that land, just like he promised to do.

He will drive out all your enemies ahead of you, just as he said.

20 “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘Why did Yahweh our God command us to obey all these rules and regulations?’

In the future, when your children come and ask you, “What's the point of decrees and rules and regulations that the Lord our God ordered you to follow?”

21 tell them, ‘Our ancestors were slaves of the king in Egypt, but Yahweh brought them out of Egypt by his great power [MTY].

then you are to tell them, “Once we were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord by his power led us out of Egypt.

22 They saw him do many kinds of miracles [DOU] and do terrifying things to the people of Egypt and to the king and his officials.

Before our very eyes the Lord brought down incredible and terrifying signs and miracles on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his people.

23 He rescued our ancestors from Egypt and brought them here to give them this land, just like he vowed that he would do.

But he led us out of there to take us here, giving us this country that he had promised to our forefathers.

24 And he commanded us to obey all these laws and to revere him, for our own good and in order that he would protect our nation and enable us to prosper, as he is doing now.

The Lord ordered us to keep all these laws and to respect the Lord our God, so that we would always be safe and well, as we are today

25 Yahweh our God will (approve of us/consider us to be righteous) if we carefully obey everything that he has commanded us to do.’”

And if we carefully observe each of these commandments as we live in the presence of the Lord, as he instructed us, then we will be right with him.”