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Deuteronomy 6

1“This is the commandment—the statutes and judgments Yahweh your God commanded me to teach you to carry out in the land you are crossing over to possess, 2so that you may fear Yahweh your God, keeping all his statutes and commandments I command you—you, your son, and your son’s son—all the days of your life, and so that your days may be prolonged. 3Listen, Israel, and take care to carry them out, so that it may go well with you and you may multiply greatly, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

4“Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. 5Love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your life, and with all your might. 6These words I command you today are to be on your heart. 7Impress them on your sons. Speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be bands between your eyes. 9Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

10“When Yahweh your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give you, with large and good towns you did not build, 11houses full of every good thing you did not fill, hewn cisterns you did not hew, vineyards and olive trees you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, 12take care that you do not forget Yahweh, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. 13Fear Yahweh your God, serve him, and swear by his name. 14You must not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples around you, 15because Yahweh your God among you is a jealous God. Otherwise Yahweh your God’s anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the ground.

16“You must not test Yahweh your God as you tested him at Massah. 17You must carefully keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, his testimonies and statutes that he commanded you. 18Do what is right and good in Yahweh’s eyes, so that it may go well with you and you may enter and possess the good land Yahweh swore to your fathers, 19driving all your enemies out before you, as Yahweh promised.

20“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments Yahweh our God commanded you?’ 21tell your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand. 22Before our eyes Yahweh brought great and terrible signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and his whole household. 23He brought us out of there to bring us in and give us the land he swore to our fathers. 24Yahweh commanded us to carry out all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, to keep us alive, as we are today. 25And it will be righteousness for us if we take care to carry out this whole commandment before Yahweh our God, as he commanded us.’

Translation notes 5

6:4 — One or alone. The Hebrew has no expressed “is”: “Yahweh our God Yahweh one.” “Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one” keeps the confession’s compact wording. “Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone” is a serious alternative, stressing exclusive allegiance; “Yahweh is unique” is another understanding of “one.” The following demands for undivided love support exclusive loyalty without settling every syntactic question. No later theological formula has been inserted.

6:5–7 — Heart, life, and might. Heart includes thought, resolve, and affection. “Life” renders nephesh, the living person and life itself. “Might” represents a word ordinarily meaning “very/much,” here encompassing one’s full capacity or resources. These are overlapping expressions of total devotion, not a division of the person into three independent parts. Loving Yahweh includes committed obedience without reducing love to a legal abstraction.

6:8–9 — Signs on the body and house. “Bands” is a cautious rendering of an uncommon term traditionally associated with forehead signs. “Between your eyes” preserves the bodily location rather than silently replacing it with a later ritual object’s name. The text itself commands binding and writing; questions about metaphor and material practice belong to interpretation.

6:13–16 — Oaths and testing. Swearing by Yahweh’s name is positively commanded here. It has not been rewritten in light of later teachings about oaths. Massah recalls Israel’s testing of Yahweh in the wilderness.

6:20–25 — Story and righteousness. The answer to the son connects the commands to actual enslavement and release. “Righteousness” in verse 25 is the text’s term for faithful conduct before Yahweh; the translation does not replace it with a later doctrine or an argument against one.