Rewards of Obedience

(Leviticus 25:18-22; Deuteronomy 4:1-14; Deuteronomy 28:1-14)

1Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always. 2And know you this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, 3And his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the middle of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day; 5And what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came into this place; 6And what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the middle of all Israel: 7But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which he did.

God's Great Blessings

(Joshua 1:1-9)

8Therefore shall you keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land, where you go to possess it; 9And that you may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their seed, a land that flows with milk and honey. 10For the land, where you go in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from from where you came out, where you sowed your seed, and watered it with your foot, as a garden of herbs: 11But the land, where you go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water of the rain of heaven: 12A land which the LORD your God cares for: the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.

13And it shall come to pass, if you shall listen diligently to my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil. 15And I will send grass in your fields for your cattle, that you may eat and be full. 16Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; 17And then the LORD's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest you perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD gives you.

Remember God's Words

18Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign on your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 19And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20And you shall write them on the door posts of your house, and on your gates: 21That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven on the earth. 22For if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to join to him; 23Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. 24Every place where on the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the uttermost sea shall your coast be. 25There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread on, as he has said to you.

A Blessing and a Curse

26Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; 27A blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: 28And a curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which you have not known.

29And it shall come to pass, when the LORD your God has brought you in to the land where you go to possess it, that you shall put the blessing on mount Gerizim, and the curse on mount Ebal. 30Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goes down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the desert over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh? 31For you shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you shall possess it, and dwell therein. 32And you shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.