Hey, this is Shelby and Paul, and we are a few days into reading the book of Deuteronomy together.

Today we're in chapters 10 through 12. Paul, what's going on in these chapters?

Yeah, so we get Moses kind of concluding his summary of the Israelites history,

and then we kind of get some more explanation of how the Israelites were supposed to live in the

promised land with, you know, explanation of certain blessings and curses that Israel received

for obedience and disobedience, respectively, which we talked a little bit about yesterday,

but we can get into a little bit more today. Yeah, I would love to get into that a little bit more because I feel like reading blessings and curses. I don't know, there's like all these questions that begin to bubble up in me, both about how this applied to the original readers or hearers of this and also myself. So can we dive into that a little bit more?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, it can be so difficult, you know, as Christians were

often thinking about legalism and making sure, hey, you know, we don't earn our salvation, right?

But like we mentioned yesterday, the basis for this, obviously, is that God has already delivered

them from slavery. and that's what

makes them his people. And yet, you know, they're still sinful human beings. And so there

needs to be consequence for the way that they behave. And, you know, God knows that this discipline

is essentially what it is will help them become more like his people that he intends them to be.

And I think there's a really key verse in these chapters that kind of explains the heart behind it.

And it's chapter 10, verse 16. It says, therefore circumcise your hearts and don't be stiff-necked any longer.

And that phrase circumcise your hearts, it sounds a bit weird, but, you know,

it kind of gets to the heart of God's commands. So circumcision was the sign of the covenant

that basically they would make this mark in their bodies, that they are God's people. And so here,

Moses is basically saying, hey, it's not just in your body. It's in your heart. It's in your heart posture towards God. And I think the coolest thing is we actually see Paul pick up this language in the book of Romans, where he says, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart by the spirit, not the letter. And so kind of in Deuteronomy,

we're seeing Paul is basically pointing out that, you know, this has always been true, that

circumcision is a matter of the heart, that yes, we make outward expressions of that, but that in the

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