Deuteronomy 4:9

9 Only take care, and keep watch on your soul, for fear that the things which your eyes have seen go from your memory and from your heart all the days of your life; but let the knowledge of them be given to your children and to your children's children;

Deuteronomy 4:9 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 4:9

Only take heed to thyself
To walk according to this law, and not swerve from it:

and keep thy soul diligently;
from the transgressions and breaches of it:

lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen;
either the statutes and judgments set before them, and the circumstances of the delivery of them; or the punishment inflicted on the breakers of them; or the favours bestowed on those that observed them:

and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life;
out of thy mind and memory, and have no place in thy affections, through a neglect and disuse of them:

but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;
their children and grandchildren, that they may be trained up in them in their youth, and so not depart from them when grown up, and in years; see ( Deuteronomy 6:7 ) .

Deuteronomy 4:9 In-Context

7 For what great nation has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is, whenever we are turned to him in prayer?
8 And what great nation has laws and decisions so right as all this law which I put before you today?
9 Only take care, and keep watch on your soul, for fear that the things which your eyes have seen go from your memory and from your heart all the days of your life; but let the knowledge of them be given to your children and to your children's children;
10 That day when you were waiting before the Lord your God in Horeb, and the Lord said to me, Make all the people come together, so that hearing my words they may go in fear of me all the days of their life on earth and give this teaching to their children.
11 And you came near, waiting at the foot of the mountain; and flames of fire went up from the mountain to the heart of heaven, with dark clouds, and all was black as night.
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