Daily Text and Bible Reading: Wednesday, February 26 [Press play below]

8.1 “You should be careful to observe every commandment that I am giving you today, so that you may continue living and multiply and go in and take possession of the land about which Jehovah swore to your forefathers.
8.2 Remember the long road that Jehovah your God made you walk these 40 years in the wilderness, to humble you and to put you to the test so as to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
8.3 So he humbled you and let you go hungry and fed you with the manna, which neither you had known nor your fathers had known, in order to make you know that man does not live by bread alone but man lives by every expression from Jehovah’s mouth.
8.4 The clothing you wore did not wear out, nor did your feet become swollen these 40 years.
8.5 You well know in your heart that just as a man corrects his son, Jehovah your God was correcting you.
8.6 “Now you must keep the commandments of Jehovah your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.
8.7 For Jehovah your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of streams of water, springs and fountains flowing in the valley plain and in the mountainous region,
8.8 a land of wheat and barley, of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey,
8.9 a land where food will not be scarce and you will lack nothing, a land where the stones contain iron and from its mountains you will mine copper.
8.10 “When you have eaten and are satisfied, you must praise Jehovah your God for the good land that he has given you.
8.11 Be careful not to forget Jehovah your God by failing to keep his commandments, his judicial decisions, and his statutes that I am commanding you today.
8.12 When you eat and are satisfied and you build fine houses and dwell in them,
8.13 when your herd and your flocks multiply and your silver and gold increase and you have an abundance of everything,
8.14 do not let your heart become proud and cause you to forget Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,
8.15 who caused you to walk through the great and fearsome wilderness, with poisonous serpents and scorpions and with parched ground that has no water. He made water flow out of the flinty rock
8.16 and fed you with manna in the wilderness, which your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and to put you to the test so as to benefit you in the future.
8.17 If you should say in your heart, ‘My own power and the strength of my own hand have produced this wealth for me,’
8.18 remember that it is Jehovah your God who gives power to you to make wealth, in order to carry out his covenant that he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.
8.19 “If you should ever forget Jehovah your God and you walk after other gods and serve them and bow down to them, I do bear witness against you today that you will surely perish.
8.20 Like the nations that Jehovah is destroying before you, that is how you will perish, because you would not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God.
9.1 “Hear, O Israel, today you are crossing the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified to the heavens,
9.2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, about whom you know and have heard it said, ‘Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?’
9.3 Therefore, you should know this day that Jehovah your God will cross ahead of you. He is a consuming fire, and he will annihilate them. He will subdue them before your eyes so that you may quickly drive them out and destroy them, just as Jehovah has promised you.
9.4 “Do not say in your heart when Jehovah your God drives them away from before you, ‘It was because of my own righteousness that Jehovah has brought me in to take possession of this land.’ Rather, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Jehovah is driving them away from before you.
9.5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land. Instead, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Jehovah your God is driving them away from before you and in order to carry out the word that Jehovah swore to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
9.6 Know, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that Jehovah your God is giving you this good land to take possession of, because you are an obstinate people.
9.7 “Remember—never forget—the way you provoked Jehovah your God in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until your coming to this place, you have rebelled against Jehovah.
9.8 Even in Horeb you provoked Jehovah, and Jehovah was so angry with you that he was ready to annihilate you.
9.9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that Jehovah made with you, I remained on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights, eating no food and drinking no water.
9.10 Then Jehovah gave me the two tablets of stone written on with God’s finger, and on them were all the words that Jehovah had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire in the day of the assembly.
9.11 At the end of the 40 days and 40 nights, Jehovah gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant,
9.12 and Jehovah told me, ‘Get up, go down quickly from here, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the path I commanded them to follow. They have made a metal image for themselves.’
9.13 Jehovah then said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and look! it is an obstinate people.
9.14 Let me be, and I will annihilate them and wipe out their name from under the heavens, and let me make you a nation mightier and more numerous than they are.’
9.15 “Then I turned and went down the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in both my hands.
9.16 Then I looked and saw that you had sinned against Jehovah your God! You had made a metal calf for yourselves. You had turned aside quickly from the path Jehovah had commanded you to follow.
9.17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them down with both my hands and shattered them before your eyes.
9.18 Then I prostrated myself before Jehovah, as at first, for 40 days and 40 nights. I neither ate food nor drank water, because of all the sins that you had committed by your doing what was evil in Jehovah’s eyes and offending him.
9.19 For I was terrified because of Jehovah’s great anger against you, in that he was ready to annihilate you. However, Jehovah listened to me that time also.
9.20 “Jehovah was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to annihilate him, but I made supplication for Aaron at that time also.
9.21 Then I took the sinful thing you made, the calf, and burned it up in the fire; I crushed it and ground it thoroughly until it was fine like dust, and I threw the dust into the stream that flows down from the mountain.
9.22 “Further, at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you also provoked Jehovah to anger.
9.23 When Jehovah sent you out of Kadesh-barnea and said, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I will certainly give you!’ you again rebelled against the order of Jehovah your God, and you did not exercise faith in him and did not obey him.
9.24 You have rebelled against Jehovah ever since I have known you.
9.25 “So I kept prostrating myself before Jehovah 40 days and 40 nights, for I prostrated myself in this way because Jehovah said he would annihilate you.
9.26 I began to make supplication to Jehovah and to say, ‘O Sovereign Lord Jehovah, do not bring your people to ruin. They are your personal possession, whom you redeemed through your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
9.27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not pay attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness, and their sin.
9.28 Otherwise the people of the land from which you brought us may say: “Jehovah was unable to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.”
9.29 For they are your people and your personal possession, whom you brought out with your great power and your outstretched arm.’
10.1 “At that time Jehovah said to me, ‘Carve out for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and come up to me on the mountain; also you must make for yourself an ark of wood.
10.2 And I will write on the tablets the words that appeared on the first tablets, which you shattered, and you should place them in the ark.’
10.3 So I made an ark of acacia wood and carved out two tablets of stone like the first ones and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.
10.4 Then he wrote on the tablets the words he had written before, the Ten Commandments, which Jehovah had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly; and Jehovah gave them to me.
10.5 Then I turned and went down the mountain and placed the tablets in the ark that I had made, where they remain, just as Jehovah had commanded me.
10.6 “The Israelites then departed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan for Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar began to serve as priest in his place.
10.7 From there they departed for Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah for Jotbathah, a land flowing with streams of water.
10.8 “At that time Jehovah set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of Jehovah’s covenant, to stand before Jehovah in order to minister to him, and to bless in his name, as they do to this day.
10.9 That is why Levi has not been given a share or an inheritance with his brothers. Jehovah is his inheritance, just as Jehovah your God had said to him.
10.10 I myself stayed on the mountain as I did the first time, 40 days and 40 nights, and Jehovah listened to me on that occasion also. Jehovah did not want to destroy you.
10.11 Then Jehovah said to me, ‘Go ahead of the people, and prepare to depart, so that they may go in and take possession of the land that I have sworn to their forefathers to give to them.’
10.12 “Now, O Israel, what is Jehovah your God asking of you? Only this: to fear Jehovah your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve Jehovah your God with all your heart and all your soul,
10.13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of Jehovah that I am commanding you today for your own good.
10.14 Look, to Jehovah your God belong the heavens, even the heavens of the heavens, and the earth with all that is in it.
10.15 But only to your forefathers did Jehovah draw close and express his love, and he has chosen you, their offspring, out of all the peoples, as you are today.
10.16 You must now cleanse your hearts and stop being so stubborn.
10.17 For Jehovah your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the God great, mighty, and awe-inspiring, who treats none with partiality and does not accept a bribe.
10.18 He executes justice for the fatherless child and the widow and loves the foreign resident, giving him food and clothing.
10.19 You too must love the foreign resident, for you became foreign residents in the land of Egypt.
10.20 “Jehovah your God you should fear, him you should serve, to him you should cling, and by his name you should swear.
10.21 He is the One you are to praise. He is your God, who has done all these great and awe-inspiring things for you that your own eyes have seen.
10.22 With 70 people your forefathers went down into Egypt, and now Jehovah your God has made you as numerous as the stars of the heavens.