Eikev

"And it shall be, because you listen to these ordinances": covenant kindness kept, blessing and multiplication, fertility of womb and soil and flock, no sickness — and no fear of the nations, who will be cleared away little by little, their images burned, their silver and gold not coveted. Remember the whole way these forty years in the wilderness: the humbling, the testing, the manna unknown to you and your fathers — "that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD." Your garment did not wear out; your foot did not swell; as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you.

For the land ahead is good: brooks and springs, wheat and barley, vine and fig and pomegranate, olive oil and honey — "you will eat and be satisfied, and bless the LORD your God for the good land He has given you." The danger is fullness itself: fine houses, multiplied herds and silver, and the heart lifted up to say "my power and the might of my hand made me this wealth." Nor is the gift for Israel's righteousness — "you are a stiff-necked people" — and Moses retells the calf: the forty days, the tablets received and shattered, the prayer flung down another forty days and nights, the intercession even for Aaron, and the second tablets placed in the ark he made.

"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul." Circumcise the foreskin of your heart; He is the God of gods who executes justice for orphan and widow and loves the stranger — "and you shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." The land ahead is not like Egypt, watered by foot; it drinks the rain of heaven, and the eyes of the LORD are on it from year's beginning to year's end. The second passage of the Shema follows — rain in its season if you love and serve, the sky shut if you turn aside; the words laid on heart and soul, bound and taught and written on doorposts, "that your days may be multiplied... as the days of the heavens above the earth." Every place the sole of your foot treads will be yours; no man will stand before you.