I cried out to you, “Deliver me, so that I can keep ¹  your rules.”

I take note of the treacherous and despise them, because they do not keep your instructions. ¹ 

I keep your rules; I love them greatly.

O fire and hail, snow and clouds, ¹  O stormy wind that carries out his orders, ² 

But if that nation does what displeases me and does not obey me, then I will cancel the good I promised to do to it.

Instead ¹  he finds pleasure in obeying the Lord’s commands; ²  he meditates on ³  his commands ⁴  day and night.

ב (Bet) How can a young person ¹  maintain a pure life? ²  By guarding it according to your instructions! ³ 

ג (Gimel) Be kind to your servant! Then I will live ¹  and keep ²  your instructions. ³ 

Revive me with ¹  your loyal love, that I might keep ²  the rules you have revealed. ³ 

I stay away ¹  from the evil path, so that I might keep your instructions. ² 

My life is in continual danger, ¹  but I do not forget your law.

For we consider that a person ¹  is declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law. ² 

For this reason also I wrote you: ¹  to test you to see ²  if you are obedient in everything.

Now ¹  by this we know that we have come to know God: ²  if we keep his commandments.

I also call on you ¹  to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually ²  in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

But they did not obey ¹  their leaders. Instead they prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped ²  them. They quickly turned aside from the path ³  their ancestors ⁴  had walked. Their ancestors had obeyed the Lord’s commands, but they did not. ⁵ 

So Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan River ¹  across from Jericho. ²  They said,

Instead you must utterly annihilate them ¹  – the Hittites, ²  Amorites, ³  Canaanites, ⁴  Perizzites, ⁵  Hivites, ⁶  and Jebusites ⁷  – just as the Lord your God has commanded you,

‘Cursed is the one who refuses to keep the words of this law.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

If you follow my instructions ¹  by obeying ²  my rules and regulations, just as your father David did, ³  then I will grant you long life.” ⁴