DEUTERONOMY 26

Now when you have come into the land which Yehowah your God gives you for an inheritance, and you possess it and live there, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land which Yehowah your God gives you, and shall put it in a basket; and you shall go to the place where Yehowah your God will choose to make his name dwell. 3 And you shall come to the priest who holds office in those days, and say to him, I declare today to Yehowah your God that I have come to the land which Yehowah swore to our fathers to give us. 4 Then the priest shall take the basket from your hands, and place it before the altar of Yehowah your God.

5 And you shall speak, and say before Yehowah your God, My father was a nomadic Aramean, and he went down into Egypt to settle there with a small number, and there he became a nation-great, mighty, and numerous. 6 Then the Egyptians ill-treated us and afflicted us, and imposed forced labour upon us; 7 and we cried out to Yehowah the God of our fathers; and Yehowah heard our cries, and saw our affliction and toil and oppression. 8 So Yehowah brought us out of Egypt by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by a great terror, and by signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 And now, see, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground, which thou, O Yehowah, hast given me. And you shall place it before Yehowah your God, and bow down before Yehowah your God; 11 and you shall be glad because of all the good which Yehowah your God has given to you and your house, you and the Levite and the settler who is among you.

12 When you have finished paying all the tithes of your produce in the third year, which is the tithe-year, giving it to the Levite, the settler, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your gates and be satisfied, 13 then you shall say before Yehowah your God, I have put aside from my house what is holy, and also I have given it to the Levite and the settler, to the fatherless and the widow, in accordance with all thy commandment which thou hast given me; I have not transgressed thy commandments, nor have I forgotten them: 14 I have not eaten it while grieving, nor have I put any of it aside while I was unclean, nor given any of it to the dead; I have obeyed the voice of Yehowah my God; I have done everything which thou hast commanded me. 15 Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel and the ground which thou hast given us, as thou didst promise to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

16 Today Yehowah your God has commanded you to observe these statutes and regulations; and you shall take care to observe them with all your heart and soul. 17 Today you have declared that Yehowah will be your God, in whose ways you will walk, and whose statutes, commandments, and regulations you will keep, and whose voice you will obey. 18 And today Yehowah has declared that you will be a people for his own possession, as he has promised you, and that you must keep all his commandments, 19 so that he may set you on high above all the nations which he has made, for a praise and a name and an honour, and so that you may be a people who are holy to Yehowah your God, as he has spoken.