See, I have set before you today life and goodness, as well as death and disaster.
Parallel translations
- WEB Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil.
- KJV See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
- NKJV “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil,
- NASB “See, I have placed before you today life and happiness, and death and adversity,
- NLT “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster.
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
Moses sets before Israel a clear choice: life and good, or death and evil. God's word confronts us with a decisive choice.
Overview
Moses frames the covenant decision starkly as life and prosperity versus death and ruin. There is no neutral ground; the response to God's word determines destiny. This either-or, fulfilled in the gospel's call to choose Christ who is the life, presses every hearer to a definite and urgent decision.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Deut 11:26See, today I am setting before you a blessing and a curse—
- Deut 30:19I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live,
- Gal 3:13–14Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
- 1 Jn 5:11–12And this is that testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
- Deut 28:1–14“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
- Deut 32:47For they are not idle words to you, because they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
- Mark 16:16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
- Deut 30:1“When all these things come upon you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you,
- John 3:16For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
- 1 Jn 3:23And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us.
- Gal 5:6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. All that matters is faith, expressed through love.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 30:15 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.