Deuteronomy 10

¹ ‘Yahweh then said to me, “Cut two stone tablets like the first, and come up to me on the mountain. Make an ark of wood;

² on the tablets I shall inscribe the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke, and you will put them in the ark.”

³ So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two stone tablets like the first and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.

⁴ And he inscribed the tablets as he had inscribed them before with the Ten Sayings that Yahweh had spoken to you on the mountain from the middle of the fire on the day of the Assembly. Then Yahweh gave them to me.

⁵ I came down the mountain again and put the tablets in the ark I had made, and there they stayed as Yahweh had commanded me.

⁶ [*a]’The sons of Israel left the wells of the Bene-jaakan for Moserah, where Aaron died; he was buried there, and his son Eleazar succeeded him in the priesthood.

⁷ From there they set out for Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah for Jotbathah, a land of water-streams.

⁸ Yahweh then set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of Yahweh’s covenant, to stand in the presence of Yahweh, to do him service and in his name to pronounce blessing as they still do today.

⁹ Levi therefore has no share or inheritance with his brothers: Yahweh is his inheritance, as Yahweh your God told him.

¹⁰ ‘And I, as before, stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. And again Yahweh heard my prayer and agreed not to destroy you.

¹¹ And Yahweh said to me, “Now go on your way at the head of this people, that they may go and take possession of the land I swore to their fathers I would give them”.

¹² ‘And now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask of you? Only this: to fear Yahweh your God, to follow all his ways, to love him, to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and all your soul,

¹³ to keep the commandments and laws of Yahweh that for your good I lay down for you today.

¹⁴ ‘To Yahweh your God belong indeed heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth and all it contains;

¹⁵ yet it was on your fathers that Yahweh set his heart for love of them, and after them of all the nations chose their descendants, you yourselves, up to the present day.

¹⁶ Circumcise your heart then and be obstinate no longer;

¹⁷ for Yahweh your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, triumphant and terrible, never partial, never to be bribed.

¹⁸ It is he who sees justice done for the orphan and the widow, who loves the stranger and gives him food and clothing.

¹⁹ Love the stranger then, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

²⁰ It is Yahweh your God you must fear and serve; you must cling to him; in his name take your oaths.

²¹ He it is you must praise, he is your God: for you he has done these great and terrible things you have seen with your own eyes;

²² and though your fathers numbered only seventy when they went down to Egypt, Yahweh your God has made you as many as the stars of heaven.