you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. For the LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Parallel translations
- WEB you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for Yahweh your God is testing you, to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
- KJV Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
- NKJV you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
- NASB you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
- NLT do not listen to them. The Lord your God is testing you to see if you truly love him with all your heart and soul.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Israel must not heed such a prophet, for the LORD is testing whether they love him wholeheartedly. Temptations can be occasions God uses to prove genuine love.
Overview
Moses reveals that God permits such tests to reveal whether his people love him with all their heart and soul. The true response to a false prophet is steadfast loyalty to the LORD. This sovereign use of testing for the good of the faithful echoes in the New Testament, where trials prove and refine the faith of those who belong to Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Deut 8:2Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.
- 1 Cor 11:19And indeed, there must be differences among you to show which of you are approved.
- Ps 66:10For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us like silver.
- 1 Jn 4:1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
- Deut 6:5And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
- Isa 8:20To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
- 2 Th 2:11For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie,
- Matt 24:24For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders that would deceive even the elect, if that were possible.
- Rev 13:14Because of the signs it was given to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived those who dwell on the earth, telling them to make an image to the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet had lived.
- Deut 8:16He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.
- 1 Jn 2:19They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us.
- Eph 4:14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming.
- 2 Cor 8:8I am not making a demand, but I am testing the sincerity of your love in comparison to the earnestness of others.
- Ps 81:7You called out in distress, and I rescued you; I answered you from the cloud of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
- 1 Jn 4:4You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
- Acts 17:11Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 13:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.