Deuteronomy 26:1-19
26 “And when you come into the country your God Jehovah is giving you as your estate, and take possession of it and settle in it,
2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the soil that you get in off your country that your God Jehovah is giving to you, and lay it in a basket and go to the place your God Jehovah chooses to install his name in,
3 * and you shall come to the priest that there shall be in those days and say to him ‘I avow today to my God Jehovah that I have come to the country Jehovah swore to our fathers to give to us’;
4 and the priest shall take the basket out of your hands and set it down before the altar of your God Jehovah.
5 And you shall testify before your God Jehovah ‘My father was a Syrian at death’s door who went down to Egypt and settled there as an immigrant with a few people, and there he became a great and goodly and numerous nation;
6 and the Egyptians ill-treated us and wore us down and overworked us,
7 and we cried to our fathers’ God Jehovah, and Jehovah listened to our voice and saw our wretched state and our suffering and our oppression;
8 and Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and with a great terror and with tokens and prodigies,
9 and brought us to this place and gave us this country, a country that runs milk and honey.
10 And now here I have brought the first of the fruit of the soil you have given me, Jehovah.’ And you shall set it down before your God Jehovah and do reverence before your God Jehovah,
11 and rejoice in all the good things your God Jehovah has given you, you and your family and the Levite and the immigrant you have among you.
12 “When you finish taking out all the tithe of your produce in the third year, the tithing year, you shall give it to the Levite, the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow, and they shall eat their fill of it in your locality.
13 And you shall say before your God Jehovah ‘I have both routed out the sacred from my house and given it to the Levite and the immigrant, the orphan and the widow, in full accordance with the command you gave me; I have not broken nor forgotten any of your commands.
14 I have not eaten any of it in trouble, nor routed out any of it in any unclean way, nor given any of it to a dead person; I have obeyed my God Jehovah, I have done just as you commanded me.
15 Look down from your holy dwelling heaven and bless your people Israel and the soil that you have given to us as you swore to our fathers that you would, a country that runs milk and honey.’
16 “This day your God Jehovah is commanding you to live by these usages and laws; and you shall take care that you do live up to them with all your heart and soul.
17 You have engaged Jehovah today to let you have him for your God and walk in his ways and keep his usages and commandments and laws and obey him;
18 and Jehovah has engaged you today to be a people specially his own, as he promised you, and to keep all his commandments,
19 and that he should set you high over all the nations he has made for praise and fame and glory, and that you should be a holy people to your God Jehovah as he promised.”
Footnotes
^ 26:3 Var. to your God Jehovah
