Love Your Father With Everything
Hear, Israel: our Father is one, and you shall love him with all your heart, soul and strength. The words go on the heart first, then into ordinary talk at home and on the road, on doorposts, and into the answer a child gets when he asks why.
6 1This is the commandment—statutes and judgments—your Father commanded me to teach you, so you may do them in the land you are crossing over to possess. 2So you may honor your Father, keeping all his statutes and commands I give you—you, your children, your grandchildren—all the days of your life, and so you may live long. 3Listen, Israel, and carefully do them, so it goes well for you and you multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as our Father, the God of your fathers, promised you.
4Hear, Israel: our Father is one. a a v4 Jesus affirmed this confession as the most important commandment (Mark 12:29). He also said, 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30). 5Love your Father with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6And these words that I command you today are to be on your heart. 7Teach them diligently to your children, and talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be as bands on your forehead; 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10When your Father brings you to the land he swore to your fathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give you big, good cities you didn't build, 11houses full of every good thing you didn't fill, cisterns already dug you didn't dig, vineyards and olive trees you didn't plant—and when you eat and are satisfied. 12Be careful not to forget our Father, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13You are to honor your Father and serve him, and you are to swear by his name. 14Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you, 15for your Father among you is a jealous Father, or his anger will flare against you and wipe you off the face of the earth. 16Do not test your Father as you tested him at Massah. b b v16 Massah: the place where Israel quarreled and tested our Father over lack of water (Exodus 17:1–7). 17Diligently keep your Father's commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes he commanded you. 18Do what is right and good in our Father's eyes, so it goes well for you, and you enter and possess the good land our Father swore to give your fathers, 19driving out all your enemies before you, as our Father has spoken.
20When your child someday asks you, 'What are the testimonies and statutes and judgments our Father commanded you?' 21Then tell your child: 'We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and our Father brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22Our Father gave great and terrifying signs and wonders against Egypt, Pharaoh, and his whole household, before our eyes. 23He brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he swore to our fathers. 24And our Father commanded us to do all these statutes, to honor our Father, for our good always, to keep us alive, as we are today. 25It will be righteousness for us if we keep and do all this commandment before our Father, as he commanded us.'
