The Wilderness Years

For if you carefully keep all these commandments I am giving you to follow—to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him—

then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and stronger than you.

Every place where the sole of your foot treads will be yours. Your territory will extend from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Western Sea.

No man will be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the fear and dread of you upon all the land, wherever you set foot, as He has promised you.

See, today I am setting before you a blessing and a curse—

a blessing if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am giving you today,

but a curse if you disobey the commandments of the LORD your God and turn aside from the path I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

Are not these mountains across the Jordan, west of the road toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah opposite Gilgal near the Oak of Moreh?

For you are about to cross the Jordan to enter and possess the land that the LORD your God is giving you. When you take possession of it and settle in it,

be careful to follow all the statutes and ordinances that I am setting before you today.

These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to follow all the days you live in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess.

Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.

Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn up their Asherah poles, cut down the idols of their gods, and wipe out their names from every place.

You shall not worship the LORD your God in this way.

Instead, you must seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.

To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in all you do, because the LORD your God has blessed you.

You are not to do as we are doing here today, where everyone does what seems right in his own eyes.

For you have not yet come to the resting place and the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you.

When you cross the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and He gives you rest from all the enemies around you and you dwell securely,

then the LORD your God will choose a dwelling for His Name. And there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice offerings you vow to the LORD.

And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.

Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings in just any place you see;

you must offer them only in the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribal territories, and there you shall do all that I command you.