The first part of verse 18 is similar to 6.6; the second part is exactly the same as 6.8.

Lay up … in your heart and in your soul: this includes both the mind and the feelings; so Good News Translation says “Remember these commands and cherish them.” Contemporary English Version has “Memorize these laws and think about them.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

This verse is exactly like 6.7, except that here the opening verb is simply teach.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

This verse is exactly like 6.9.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

In Revised Standard Version this verse is joined to verse 20 as a purpose clause. It may be better to make this a complete sentence, beginning “Do this so that…” as a statement of result, as Good News Translation does: “Then you and your children…” (similarly Contemporary English Version).

Days … may be multiplied: again, as the final clause shows, this means “that you and your descendants may live forever in this land.” Moses is not talking about each one of them living a long time, but about the Israelites’ permanent possession of the Promised Land.

Which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them: see 1.8.

As long as the heavens are above the earth: that is, forever, for all time to come. The Promised Land is to belong to the people of Israel forever. Many languages will use “sky” instead of heavens (see also Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version).

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Be careful to do: a command to obey, to put into practice; see 5.32.

All this commandment: see 5.31.

Walking in all his ways: see 8.6; 10.12

Cleaving to him: see 10.20.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

The LORD will drive out all these nations before you: see 9.5.

You will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves: see 9.1.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Every place on which the sole of your foot treads: this is a literal translation of the Hebrew text and means simply “everywhere you go,” “all the territory you walk over,” or “all the ground that you march over” (Good News Translation).

The wilderness: the desert in the south.

And Lebanon: that is, as far as the Lebanon Mountains, in the north (see Good News Translation), since at that time there was no country known as Lebanon.

From the River, the river Euphrates: the eastern border. See 1.7.

The western Sea: that is, the Mediterranean, the western border.

The directions here are: south, north, east, and west. In some languages there is a fixed order, such as north, south, east, and west in English. Translators should feel free to follow the normal order used in their own languages.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Stand against you: as in 7.24.

Will lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land: see 2.25. Here land is used in the sense of the peoples who live in Canaan. These two words, fear and dread, do not refer to ordinary fear, but rather to extreme terror. In a number of languages they will be expressed as “will make everyone tremble with terror” or “… be so terrified that their bodies shake.”

That you shall tread: as in verse 24.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .