Devarim (Deuteronomy) 6

1And this is the Instruction—the laws and the rules—that the ETERNAL your God has commanded [me] to impart to you, to be observed in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy,

2so that you, your children, and your children’s children may revere the ETERNAL your God and follow, as long as you live, all the laws and commandments that I enjoin upon you, to the end that you may long endure.

3Obey, O Israel, willingly and faithfully, that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly [in] a land flowing with milk and honey, as the ETERNAL, the God of your ancestors, spoke to you.†

4Hear, O Israel! The ETERNAL is our God, the ETERNAL alone.†

5You shall love the ETERNAL your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

6Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day.

7Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.

8Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead;†

9inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

10When the ETERNAL your God brings you into the land that was sworn to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to be assigned to you—great and flourishing cities that you did not build,

11houses full of all good things that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and you eat your fill,

12take heed that you do not forget GOD, who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.

13Revere only the ETERNAL your God; worship [God] alone; swear only by God’s name.

14Do not follow other gods, any gods of the peoples about you—

15for the ETERNAL your God in your midst is an impassioned God—lest the anger of the ETERNAL your God blaze forth against you, wiping you off the face of the earth.

16Do not try the ETERNAL your God, as you did at Massah.†

17Be sure to keep the commandments, decrees, and laws that the ETERNAL your God has enjoined upon you.

18Do what is right and good in the sight of GOD, that it may go well with you and that you may be able to possess the good land that the ETERNAL your God promised on oath to your fathers,†

19and that all your enemies may be driven out before you, as GOD has spoken.

20When, in time to come, your children ask you, “What mean the decrees, laws, and rules that the ETERNAL our God has enjoined upon you?”†

21you shall say to your children, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and GOD freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand.

22GOD wrought before our eyes marvelous and destructive signs and portents in Egypt—against Pharaoh and all his household—

23and freed us from there, in order to take us and give us the land promised on oath to our fathers.†

24Then the ETERNAL commanded us to observe all these laws, to revere the ETERNAL our God, for our lasting good and for our survival, as is now the case.

25It will be therefore to our merit before the ETERNAL our God to observe faithfully this whole Instruction, as we have been commanded.”