You must carefully perform all of the commandment that I am commanding you right now so you can live and multiply and enter and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors. Remember the long road on which the Lord your God led you during these forty years in the desert so he could humble you, testing you to find out what was in your heart: whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you the manna that neither you nor your ancestors had ever experienced, so he could teach you that people don’t live on bread alone. No, they live based on whatever the Lord says. During these forty years, your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t swell up. Know then in your heart that the Lord your God has been disciplining you just as a father disciplines his children. Keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him, because the Lord your God is bringing you to a wonderful land, a land with streams of water, springs, and wells that gush up in the valleys and on the hills; a land of wheat and barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food without any shortage—you won’t lack a thing there—a land where stone is hard as iron and where you will mine copper from the hills. You will eat, you will be satisfied, and you will bless the Lord your God in the wonderful land that he’s given you.
No Longer Slaves – Deuteronomy 8:1-10
Finding Ourselves in the Story of God
Deuteronomy 8:1-10 (CEB)