Deuteronomy 6 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~1406 BC (or ~1250 BC), end of 40 years of wilderness wandering
Location
Plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River, across from Jericho
Audience
The second generation of Israelites preparing to enter the Promised Land under Joshua's leadership
Situation
Moses delivers his final addresses before his death and Israel's entry into Canaan. He restates God's law and calls the people to covenant faithfulness as they prepare to possess the land.
Key Background
This chapter contains the Shema (vv. 4-5), which became Judaism's central confession of faith. Moses emphasizes exclusive loyalty to YHWH as Israel prepares to encounter Canaan's polytheistic culture. The commands to teach children and remember God's laws constantly reflect concern that prosperity in the new land might lead to spiritual forgetfulness and idolatry.
These are the the and the that Yahweh your God told me to teach you, so you can live by them in the land you're crossing over to take.
The point is that you, your children, and your grandchildren would live in for Yahweh your God by keeping all his boundaries and instructions your whole life — and so you'd live a long life.
So Israel, and make sure you follow through — so things go well for you and you multiply greatly in a with and just as Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
Israel: is our God — Yahweh
Yahweh your God with you are — your whole your whole and you have.
Keep these words I'm giving you today right here in your
them to your children — talk about them when you're sitting at home, when you're walking down the road, when you're going to bed, and when you're getting up.
Tie them as on and wear them as symbols on forehead.
Write them on the of your house and on your gates.
When Yahweh your God brings you into the land he to give your ancestors — to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — with large, thriving cities you didn't build,
houses full of good things you didn't stock, wells you didn't dig, and vineyards and olive groves you didn't plant — and when you eat and are satisfied,
be very careful not to forget Yahweh, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the
in of Yahweh your God, only him, and when you make a promise, by alone.
Don't other gods — the gods of the peoples surrounding you —
because Yahweh your right here among you, is an — his anger could burn against you and wipe you off the face of the earth.
Don't Yahweh your God the way you tested him at
Carefully obey everything Yahweh your God has told you — all his and the boundaries he's set for you.
Do what's and good in Yahweh's eyes, so things go well for you and you can go in and take possession of the good land Yahweh swore to give your ancestors,
by pushing all your enemies out ahead of you, just as Yahweh promised.
When your child asks you someday, 'What's the meaning behind all these instructions, boundaries, and rulings that Yahweh our God gave you?'
you'll tell them, 'We were to Pharaoh in Egypt, and Yahweh pulled us out of Egypt with an of
Yahweh unleashed devastating and terrifying and against Egypt, against Pharaoh, and against his entire court — right before our eyes.
He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here — to give us the land he promised our ancestors.
Yahweh told us to live by all these boundaries and to in of Yahweh God — for own always, so he could keep us alive, which is exactly what he's done.
And it will count as us when we carefully live by all these instructions that Yahweh our God gave us — exactly as he told us to.