Deuteronomy 10King James Version
Moses cuts new tablets of stone. The ark is made for them. The Levites are set apart. Then the heart of the chapter: what does the Lord require of you, but to fear the Lord, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, and to serve the Lord with all your heart and all your soul. He loves the stranger. So love the stranger.
Moses describes the second set of stone tablets, the ark built to hold them, and the Levitical priesthood established for the ark's care. The death of Aaron is noted briefly at Mosera. Moses then pivots to a soaring description of what God requires: circumcise your hearts, fear and love God, care for the orphan and widow, love the foreigner because you were foreigners in Egypt. God is Lord of lords and does not take bribes.
After the catastrophe of the golden calf and the mercy of the second tablets, the bottom line of what God asks is simply this: love him, fear him, and let that love flow outward to the vulnerable.
12: "And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul." The summation of the entire law in one rhetorical question.
Moses has just described God carving new tablets after Israel destroyed the first ones. The gesture was enormous: a second chance built in stone. Now he asks what the proper response to that kind of mercy looks like, and the answer is not ceremony but a particular orientation of the heart.
Moses, preaching. Aaron, who died at Mosera, named briefly. The Levites, designated to carry the ark and serve as priests. The foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, named as those God especially defends.
Verse 12 became a touchstone for later prophets, particularly Micah 6:8. The link between love for God and care for the vulnerable is not a New Testament innovation but is built directly into the original covenant. Deuteronomy makes social justice and theology inseparable.
For when religion feels like it has become abstract or performative. The chapter pulls everything back to the clearest possible statement: fear, love, serve, and take care of people who have no one else.
1At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.
2And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
3And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.
4And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.
5And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.
6And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead.
7From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters.
8At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.
9Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.
10And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee.
11And the LORD said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.
12And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
13To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?
14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.
15Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.
16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.
17For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:
18He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.
19Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
20Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.
21He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.
22Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.