Verses 1-25

The power of love (6:1-25)

No matter how strong their determination to do right, the people would be unable to keep God's law unless they first had a strong and genuine love for God himself. Love for him would give them the inner power to walk in his ways (6:1-5). As well as keeping God's commandments themselves, they had to teach their children to do likewise. Their family life was to be guided by the knowledge of God's law. Their house was to be known as a place where people loved God's law and lived by it (6-9).

Yahweh was the only God. He loved Israel as his specially chosen people and he wanted them to love him in return. God, on his part, would feel pain and grief if in their prosperity they forgot him or if they turned away from him to follow other gods. The people, on their part, would find their full satisfaction through walking humbly before their God and keeping his law (10-19). God's mighty acts on behalf of the Israelite people in the past were for their good, and his desire for them to keep his law in the future was likewise for their good (20-25).