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All of Deuteronomy

Bible Chapter Summary

Deuteronomy 10 Summary

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.

Key themes

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

Key verses

Deuteronomy 10:2

And 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.

Deuteronomy 10:12

And 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,

Deuteronomy 10:17

For 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:

Deuteronomy 10:16

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

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