Deuteronomy 10 -- Old Testament -- Gospel Daily

Deuteronomy

Chapter 10

New Tablets, Levites, and True Devotion

Moses recounts how God commanded him to hew two new stone tablets and construct an ark of shittim wood, after which God rewrote the Ten Commandments and Moses placed the tablets in the ark. Brief travel notices record the deaths of Aaron and the appointment of Eleazar, and the separation of the tribe of Levi to bear the ark and minister before the LORD, receiving no territorial inheritance because the LORD is their inheritance. Moses then calls Israel to fear, love, and serve the LORD wholeheartedly, keeping His commandments, and reminds them that God — sovereign over all creation, impartial, and the champion of the vulnerable — chose their fathers and multiplied their descendants from seventy persons to a multitude like the stars. The chapter closes with an appeal to "circumcise the foreskin of your heart," to love the stranger, and to cleave exclusively to the LORD who has done great and awesome things in their sight.

Renewal of the covenantThe Levitical callingWholehearted obedienceGod's impartiality and sovereigntyLove for the strangerIsrael's election and multiplication

¹At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.

²And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.

³And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.

⁴And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.

⁵And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.

⁶And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead.

⁷From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters.

⁸At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.

⁹Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.

¹⁰And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee.

¹¹And the LORD said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.

¹²And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

¹³To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

¹⁴Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

¹⁵Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.

¹⁶Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

¹⁷For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:

¹⁸He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.

¹⁹Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

²⁰Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.

²¹He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.

²²Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.