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Deuteronomy 11

1“Love Yahweh your God and keep his charge, his statutes, judgments, and commandments always. 2Know today that I am not addressing your sons, who have not known or seen the discipline of Yahweh your God—his greatness, his strong hand and outstretched arm, 3his signs and the deeds he did in Egypt to Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his land, 4what he did to Egypt’s army, its horses and chariots, when he made the waters of the Sea of Reeds flow over them as they pursued you, and Yahweh destroyed them to this day, 5what he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place, 6and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and everything at their feet, in the midst of all Israel. 7Your own eyes have seen all the great work Yahweh did.

8“Keep the whole commandment I command you today, so that you may be strong and enter and possess the land you are crossing over to possess, 9and so that you may prolong your days on the ground Yahweh swore to your fathers to give them and their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt you came out of, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot like a vegetable garden. 11The land you are crossing over to possess is a land of mountains and valleys; it drinks water from the rain of the heavens, 12a land Yahweh your God cares for. The eyes of Yahweh your God are continually on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

13“If you truly listen to my commandments I command you today, loving Yahweh your God and serving him with all your heart and all your life, 14then I will give your land its rain in its season, the early rain and the late rain, and you will gather your grain, new wine, and oil. 15I will give grass in your field for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied. 16Take care that your heart is not enticed and you turn aside to serve other gods and bow down to them. 17Then Yahweh’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so there is no rain and the ground does not yield its produce. You will quickly perish from the good land Yahweh is giving you.

18“Place these words of mine on your heart and on your life. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be bands between your eyes. 19Teach them to your sons, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. 20Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21so that your days and your sons’ days may be multiplied on the ground Yahweh swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the days of the heavens over the earth.

22“For if you carefully keep this whole commandment I command you to carry out, loving Yahweh your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23Yahweh will dispossess all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24Every place the sole of your foot treads will be yours. Your border will extend from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the River, the Euphrates River, as far as the western sea. 25No one will stand against you. Yahweh your God will put the dread and fear of you over the face of all the land you tread, as he promised you.

26“Look, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I command you today; 28and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God, but turn aside from the way I command you today to follow other gods you have not known. 29When Yahweh your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, place the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30Are they not across the Jordan, beyond the road toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh? 31For you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess the land Yahweh your God is giving you. You will possess it and live in it. 32Take care to carry out all the statutes and judgments I am setting before you today.

Translation notes 4

11:2–7 — Those who saw. “I am … addressing” supplies the speech relation needed to make the Hebrew’s interrupted “not with your sons” construction readable. Verse 7 identifies the audience as eyewitnesses. The ancestry formula “son of Reuben” denotes descent, not necessarily an immediate father-son relation. The earth’s mouth and the things “at their feet” remain bodily and spatial images; the final expression can include possessions as well as living beings.

11:10–12 — Watering with the foot. The foot expression contrasts Egypt’s managed irrigation with a land dependent on rain. Its precise mechanism is not named: water channels controlled by foot or labor at irrigation are possible explanations. The translation does not insert a waterwheel or other specific device.

11:13–18 — A change of speaker. The Hebrew moves into first-person divine promises, “I will give,” within Moses’ address, then names Yahweh in the third person again. Those shifts remain. Early and late rains mark the agricultural seasons; neither is a metaphor for a later religious movement. “On your life” means that the words are to govern the whole living person.

11:24–30 — Boundaries and mountains. The western sea is the Mediterranean. The blessing and curse mountains are Gerizim and Ebal here. The location clause in verse 30 is retained in its sequence; identifying its road and Gilgal precisely remains a geographical question rather than a reason to replace the place names.