Deut 30, 15-16 The LORD, your God, will bless you

Deuteronomy 30 (chosen pages)

(Deut 30, 15-16) The LORD, your God, will bless you

[15] Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. [16] If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

(CCC 1696) The way of Christ "leads to life"; a contrary way "leads to destruction" (Mt 7:13; cf. Deut 30: 15-20). The Gospel parable of the two ways remains ever present in the catechesis of the Church; it shows the importance of moral decisions for our salvation: "There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death; but between the two, there is a great difference" (Didache 1, 1: SCh 248, 140). (CCC 2057) The Decalogue must first be understood in the context of the Exodus, God's great liberating event at the center of the Old Covenant. Whether formulated as negative commandments, prohibitions, or as positive precepts such as: "Honor your father and mother," the "ten words" point out the conditions of a life freed from the slavery of sin. The Decalogue is a path of life: If you love the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply (Deut 30:16). This liberating power of the Decalogue appears, for example, in the commandment about the sabbath rest, directed also to foreigners and slaves: You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm (Deut 5:15).