1 One day after you experience all this, the blessings and curses I've told you about, you'll think about them, living in all the different nations where the Lord your God has exiled you. 2 When that happens, and when you and your children come back to the Lord your God, and when you do what he says with all your mind and all your being in accordance with everything I'm telling you today, then the Lord your God will be merciful to you. 3 He will bring you back home, gathering you from all the nations where he scattered you. 4 Even if you're exiled to the ends of the earth, I will gather you from there and bring you back. 5 The Lord your God will bring you home to the country that belonged to your forefathers and you will own it again. He will make you successful, and you will have even more descendants than your forefathers. 6 The Lord your God will make you and your descendants his again, and you will love him with all your mind and with all your being, so that you'll live. 7 Then the Lord your God will place all these curses upon your enemies instead, on those who hate and persecute you. 8 You will once again do what the Lord tells you and follow all his commandments that I'm giving you today. 9 The Lord your God will make you successful in everything you do, you will have children, your livestock will be productive, and you will have good harvests. The Lord will once again be happy to do you good, as he did to your forefathers, 10 if you obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and regulations written in this book of the Law, and if you come back to him with all your mind and with all your being. 11 The instruction I'm giving you today isn't too difficult for you to follow. It's not as if it's so far from you that it's impossible to achieve. 12 It's not in heaven so you have to ask, “Who is going to go up to heaven to get it for us and let us know what it says so we can obey it?” 13 It's not across the ocean so you have to ask, “Who is going to cross the ocean to get it for us and let us know what it says so we can obey it?” 14 No—you have this instruction right there before you. It's in the words you speak and in the thoughts you think, so obey it. 15 Listen! Today I've placed a choice before you: life and what's good, or death and what's evil. 16 I'm telling you today to love the Lord your God, to follow his ways, and to keep his commandments, rules, and regulations, so you can live and grow in number, and so the Lord your God may bless you in the country that you are entering and will own. 17 If you disregard this and you refuse to listen, if you're lured into bowing down to other gods and worshiping them, 18 then I warn you right now that you will definitely die. You won't live long in the country that you're going to own after you cross the Jordan. 19 I call on heaven and earth to be my witnesses against you today that I have placed before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life, so you and your descendants will live, 20 so you will love the Lord your God, obey him, and hold onto him. For he is your life, and he will give you long lives in the country that the Lord promised to give your forefathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Deuteronomy · Free Bible Version
Deuteronomy 30 Free Bible Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
Cross references (20)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 1 Kings 8:47–48; Deuteronomy 30:15; Deuteronomy 4:29–30; Deuteronomy 30:19; Deuteronomy 29:28
- 2 Joel 2:12–13; Nehemiah 1:9; Deuteronomy 4:28–31; Lamentations 3:40; Ephesians 6:24
- 3 Jeremiah 29:14; Ezekiel 36:24; Psalm 147:2; Ezekiel 34:12–13; Lamentations 3:32
- 4 Nehemiah 1:9; Ezekiel 39:25–29; Deuteronomy 28:64; Isaiah 11:11–16; Isaiah 43:6
- 5 Jeremiah 29:14
- 6 Ezekiel 36:26–27; Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 32:39; Ezekiel 11:19–20; Romans 2:28–29
- 7 Deuteronomy 7:15; Lamentations 4:21–22; Jeremiah 51:24–26; Ezekiel 25:12; Numbers 24:14
- 8 Ephesians 2:16; Ezekiel 36:27; Jeremiah 32:39–40; Ezekiel 11:19–20; Ezekiel 37:24
- 9 Deuteronomy 28:11–14; Jeremiah 32:41; Jeremiah 33:9; Deuteronomy 28:4; Isaiah 65:19
- 10 Lamentations 3:40–41; Deuteronomy 4:29; Deuteronomy 30:8; 1 Corinthians 7:19; Deuteronomy 30:2
- 11 Isaiah 45:19; Psalm 147:19–20; Romans 16:25–26; Colossians 1:26–27
- 12 Romans 10:6–8; Proverbs 30:4; John 3:13
- 13 John 6:27; Proverbs 2:1–5; Proverbs 8:11; Romans 10:14–15; Acts 10:33
- 14 Romans 10:8–10; Jeremiah 12:2; John 5:46; Matthew 7:21; Luke 10:11–12
- 15 Deuteronomy 11:26; Deuteronomy 30:19; Deuteronomy 30:1; Galatians 3:13–14; 1 John 5:11–12
- 16 Matthew 22:37–38; Deuteronomy 30:6; 1 John 5:2–3; John 14:21; Deuteronomy 6:5
- 17 2 Timothy 4:4; Proverbs 1:32; Hebrews 3:12; John 3:19–21; 1 Samuel 12:25
- 18 Deuteronomy 8:19–20; Deuteronomy 4:26; Isaiah 63:17–18; Joshua 23:15–16; Deuteronomy 31:29
- 19 Deuteronomy 30:15; Deuteronomy 11:26; Psalm 119:30; Joshua 24:15–22; Proverbs 8:36
- 20 John 11:25–26; Deuteronomy 10:20; John 17:3; John 14:6; Acts 17:25
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
And the holy Spirit of prophecy taught us this, telling us by Moses that God spoke thus to the man first created: "Behold, before thy face are good and evil: choose the good." And again, by the other prophet Isaiah, that the following utterance was made as if from God the Father and Lord of all: "Wash you, make you …
And therefore Moses says to them again: "Choose life, that thou mayest live, and thy seed, to love the Lord thy God, to hear His voice, to cleave unto Him; for this is thy life, and the length of thy days." Preparing man for this life, the Lord Himself did speak in His own person to all alike the words …