Deuteronomy 26

1 “And when you have come into the land the Lord your God is giving you to hold, and you have taken it and settled in it, 2 you are to take some of the first of the fruits of your land, which the Lord your God is giving you, and put them in a basket, and go to the place the Lord your God chooses to have his name called there. 3 And you are to come to the priest who is in office in those days and say to him: I declare today to the Lord my God that I have come into the land the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. 4 And the priest is to take the basket out of your hands and set it in front of the altar of the Lord your God. 5 And you are to speak up and say before the Lord your God: My father left Syria behind and went down into Egypt and lived there as a foreigner, a small number of people; and there he became a strong nation and a great crowd. [a] 6 And the Egyptians treated us badly and humbled us and laid hard work on us. 7 And we cried out to the Lord the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our humiliation and our labor and our trouble. 8 And the Lord brought us out of Egypt himself, with his great strength and his mighty hand and his uplifted arm, and with great sights, and with signs, and with wonders. 9 And he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 And now, look — I have brought the first of the fruits of the land you gave me, Lord, a land flowing with milk and honey. And you are to set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God, 11 and be glad in all the good things the Lord your God has given you, you and your household and the Levite and the newcomer who is among you.

12 And when you have finished setting aside all the tenths of your produce in the third year, you are to give the second tenth to the Levite and the newcomer and the fatherless and the widow, and they are to eat it in your towns and be satisfied. [b] 13 And you are to say before the Lord your God: I have cleared the holy things out of my house and given them to the Levite and the newcomer and the fatherless and the widow, according to all the commands you commanded me. I have not broken your command, and I have not forgotten it. 14 And I did not eat any of it in my mourning, and I did not gather any of it for anything unclean, and I did not give any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of the Lord my God; I have done as you commanded me. [c] 15 Look down from your holy house, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given them, as you swore to our fathers — to give us a land flowing with milk and honey.

16 On this day the Lord your God is charging you to keep all these rules and judgments; and you are to keep them and do them, with your whole heart and with your whole soul. 17 Today you have chosen God to be your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his rules and his judgments, and to listen to his voice. 18 And the Lord has chosen you today to be a people of his own, as he said, to keep his commands, 19 and to be above all nations — as he has made you known, and something to boast of, and glorious — so that you may be a holy people to the Lord your God, as he has said.”