grace of God

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Wednesday, 23 July 2014 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are reminded again of the need for us to grow in our faith, and learn to trust God in all the things He had planned and willed for each one of us in our respective lives. The Gospel today told us about the parable of the sower and the how various fates of the seeds were told, telling us in fact what happens to the faith within us if we respond or do not respond to it in a proper way.

Then in the first reading today we heard about the calling of the prophet Jeremiah, whom the Lord had chosen to be His prophet and His messenger to the errant and disobedient people of God. The tasks facing Jeremiah were truly massive and difficult, and it was a great undertaking and responsibility which God had entrusted him to do. Jeremiah was right to be hesitant and to be uncertain about himself, as most men will do, but God showed how He will take care of him and guide him along the way.

We too, brothers and sisters in Christ, should expect the same kind of things to happen to us in our own lives. We should not be so concerned about our lives, and about what will happen to us on daily basis, to the point that we forget the various wonderful things that we may be able to do with all of our abilities and time that we have on our hands.

Each of us had been entrusted with the gift of faith, hope and love by God. All of us who are His children have been given these great gifts within us. Yes, these are the seeds, the very same seeds that Jesus had figuratively mentioned in His parable of the seeds and the sower. What happens to these gifts, and whether they languish in misuse and abandonment, or whether they grow mightily and wonderfully to become inspiration for all to see, is truly depending on our own actions in life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, if we make good use of our faith in us, it will only grow. Then, if we share the hope in us and use it to bring hope to others, and if we love one another, and show others how to love, we all may only grow in standing before our Lord and God. This is exactly what happened when the seeds fell on the rich and fertile soil, where the seeds grow mighty and produce a great bounty beyond all expectations.

Yes, if we are truly faithful and practice that faith in our lives, then we shall reap rich rewards at the end of our lives. However, that is not an easy feat to do. There are numerous challenges that we will face in our lives. There are difficulties that are laid on our paths, if we choose the path of the Lord. But as we all know, and especially as all farmers and sowers should be familiar with, there is no easy way out or shortcut to get a bountiful harvest. Hard work and effort is required.

We have to make the effort to put out the weeds and all those that threaten to kill the progress and growth of the seed and the plant. Those weeds are the temptations of the flesh, and the pleasures of this world which seek to corrupt is and turn us away from the true and correct path in life. We have to destroy and cast away all these weeds from our lives, that they may not choke us with worries and selfishness.

Then we also have to grow deep roots, that we may avoid being crushed by the challenges and problems of this world. The deep roots of our faith will be necessary for us to draw strength from God, that our faith may not stumble and fall against the forces of darkness and evil arrayed against us. If our roots are not deep, that we will be easily swayed by Satan and his sweet lies.

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Bridget of Sweden, also known as St. Brigitta, who was a Swedish lady who was a mother and dedicated family woman, who bore many children, and eventually, after the death of her husband, with the support of her daughter, she joined holy and devoted life to God. She established several religious vocations and orders, inspiring many to follow her examples.

St. Bridget of Sweden herself was very devoted to God, not just in words but also through concrete action. She devoted herself to love her neighbours and others around her, giving herself into charitable acts and works. She also inspired many by her pilgrimages, in which eventually she went to Rome and settled in the city of the Holy Apostles.

St. Bridget of Sweden faced many difficulties in her life, and she experienced rejection and refusal from many people, including accusations and harassment. However, she remained steadfast in her faith and in her total dedication to the Lord. And that was why, today, she was the perfect example for all of us in how we should live out our lives, and how we carry out ourselves that we may grow stronger in faith, hope and love.

Therefore, let us pray and hope devotedly to God, that He may bless us with strength and guidance, that the seeds of faith that God had sown in us will flourish and grow great, that in the end, we may be all found worthy of our Lord. May Almighty God bless us and guide us on our way. May He strengthen our faith always. Amen.

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Tuesday, 22 July 2014 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 62 : 2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

O God, You are my God, it is You I seek; for You my body longs and my soul thirsts, as a dry and weary land without water.

Thus have I gazed upon You in Your sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You.

I will bless You as long as I live, lift up my hands and call on Your Name. As with the richest food my soul will feast; my mouth will praise You with joyful lips.

For You have been my help; I sing in the shadow of Your wings. My soul clings to You, Your right hand upholds me.

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Sunday, 20 July 2014 : 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today this Sunday just as last Sunday, we celebrate Bible or Scripture Sunday, when we truly come together to appreciate and honour this writing and collections of books which together make up the entire revelation of God and His words, which He spoke through the prophets and through His many servants throughout the ages.

In order to be able to fully appreciate and understand the importance of the Bible or the Holy Scriptures, then first we must know it and take the word of God in it into our hearts and minds. And it is important to know that without a sufficient knowledge of the word of God in the Scriptures, we cannot be truly faithful and devoted to God, for we are bound to be affected and corrupted by the falsehoods of Satan, the evil one, who spread his lies all the time to trap those whose faith are not strong.

But that does not mean we can just memorise and remember the Holy Scriptures and the word of God without understanding it and the true meaning of the literary works of the prophets and the writers of the Holy Scriptures. Do you all remember what Satan did when he tempted Jesus our Lord in the desert just after His baptism? Yes, precisely, Satan quoted the passages of the Holy Scriptures, and then twisting their meaning to serve his own wicked purposes.

Such will be the dangerous and powerful weapon that Satan will employ against those who knows the Scriptures, but refuse or disregard the need to understand the word of God and its meaning as written in the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, we cannot study or understand the Scriptures on our own, or claim that our understanding of them to be sufficient for our salvation, a view and idea which is called sola scriptura and which has quite a following among those who thought that they know it better than the early Church fathers in the matters of the faith.

Remember brothers and sisters, that the authority to teach the meaning of the Holy Scriptures has been bestowed by God to none other than Jesus Christ, His own Son, who came into the world. In Jesus lay the full completeness and perfection of all the messages and the prophecies of the prophets of the past and all the words of God revealed through the servants of God. All these are in what we know today as the Old Testament, that is the testaments and the works of the servant of God before the coming of Christ.

Jesus taught His disciples and many other people through the means of parables, or stories that are related to many different life experiences and scenarios, often not talking directly about God in those parables. For the laypersons and all those who did not understand the meaning of those parables, what Jesus told them in the parables might not make sense to them, but they might have truly understood what the stories were about.

The parables of Jesus were constructed around many real examples that if one is to take a closer inspection, would reveal that Jesus often talked about the professions that were truly ubiquitous and renowned, as well as common during the time when He was in the world. These include shepherds, which we know in the case when Jesus talked about shepherds and Himself as the Good Shepherd; fishermen, which Jesus often referred to in His teachings to the disciples in their future role as the fishers of men.

Jesus talked about farmers and sowing of seeds most often, because farming truly was the most prevalent job in the society at the time. By using these analogies, or parables, He taught the meaning of the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures with perfect clarity and true authority of teaching. With those examples and references, He could relate with the life experiences of the people, who then might understand the word better.

However, as we all know, that Jesus did not stay in the world for long. He accomplished the long-planned salvation for mankind by going through the punishments meant for our sins, bearing them on the cross towards Calvary, and gave us a new hope in life. Jesus rose up from the dead and showed us hope in His resurrection and then departed from this world to return to His throne in heaven to prepare a place for all of us.

Hence, Jesus passed down the authority to teach the Holy Scriptures in its complete and true meaning to the Apostles and the disciples whom He had chosen from among the people. He sent them the Holy Spirit, the Advocate and the Helper, who enlightened them with zeal and faith, and through the Spirit sent by God to them, they passed down the same truth and teachings of the Lord to their successors, to pass them down in the Church of God, on which God had invested the authority over all of the faithful.

There is no other wisdom and truth beyond that of the Lord’s wisdom and power, and hence there can be no truth in the Scriptures and the Word of God beyond the teachings of the Church. There were those who thought that they have the intellect and knowledge better than the Church and the early Church fathers who had received the teachings and the directly from the Lord Himself.

Luther, Henry VIII, Calvin, Zwingli, and many other countless heretics who rebelled against God and His Church were the very examples of how people have misinterpreted, twisted and misused the words of the Lord in the Holy Scriptures for their own selfish purposes. They were attached to the promises of Satan in the glories and pleasures of the world, and so deeply attached they were to their own human frailty and weakness, that they failed to see what the Lord truly meant in His words and instead caused great divisions in the body of the faithful, that is the Church.

Therefore, it is important that as we celebrate this occasion of the Bible or Scripture Sunday, that we read the Scriptures with understanding, and do our best to obey and listen to the teachings of the Church as espoused and held firm by its members and through the successors of the Apostles, namely our Pope, the Cardinals, bishops and priests of the Church of God.

Nevertheless, it is also important for us to take note that, we do not have to worry about our faith if we hold true to the teachings of the Church. What is important is that we have faith in God and keep it true at all times. God has told us through Jesus, that the faith in us is like the mustard seed. Mustard seed from the mustard plant is a very small seed, only barely a small speck to our eyes. However, when the mustard plant is fully grown, the plant is truly large, at least four to five metres tall.

What Jesus meant was that, if we allow our faith to develop and grow in us, then no matter how small that faith is, it will grow and flourish, and affecting not just ourselves, but also those around us and inspiring them to come closer to the Lord as well. But if we choose not to allow this faith to grow in us, then we will wither and perish, just as a mustard seed will remain just that, a seed if it does not sprout and grow.

How do we let it grow healthily then? It is by listening to the word of God, and not just by our ears or by our eyes that we witness these words of the Lord, but also to carry them deep into our hearts. Follow faithfully the teachings of the Lord that we gained through the Church, and we will do fine. Let us all work together, that all of us may grow stronger together in faith, hope and love in God. May He bless us always, now and forever. Amen.

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Thursday, 10 July 2014 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the words of the Lord in the Holy Scriptures today, both in the reading from the Old Testament and from the Holy Gospels are the true revelation that God is concerned with us, and He is truly not angry with us, or despise us in any way. On the contrary, He was concerned so much that He gave us none other than Jesus, to be our Hope and to be our Saviour from our certain destruction.

Yet in a way, it was also a lamentation by our God, on how mankind turned away and did not listen to the words of God, and spurned the love He had shown them, and did not care about the attention He had given them so much over the ages past. The words of Jesus in the Gospel also highlighted this fact. He taught His disciples to expect rejection, just as much as they should expect to be accepted by those whom they preach the word of God to.

Yes, brethren, our Lord seeks for us and He wants to be with us, accompany us, and talk with us, all the days of our lives. So much and so great is His love, that He truly does not want to be separated from us. But, what did we do to Him then? We often shut the door in front of Him, and we like to cast Him out of our lives. We rejected Him in favour of following the ways of the world.

Therefore, we cannot think that those who rejected the words of the Lord as mentioned in the Gospel, as well as the errant children of God in Israel, in the time of the Old Testament, are people separate from us, or that we are immune to the same errors and possibilities of falling into sin. As long as we remain in this world, we are always susceptible to the works of Satan and evil in corrupting our hearts to his purpose. We are always susceptible to sin, and we may also end up like those who were mentioned, unless if we take active steps to prevent it.

Let us today reflect on our lives, on the actions, words and everything we do, and see and think if all of them had been done in accordance to what the Lord taught us, and what He wanted us to do. Have we walked faithfully in His path, or do we prefer to follow our own path in life, following everything as we desired and as we wanted?

This is important for us, and indeed, it is crucial that we maintain a very healthy and active reflective lifestyle, thinking through our life actions, on whether they reflect ourselves as children of God, or as the children of this world, of Satan. It is easier for us to walk in the path of darkness compared to the path of light, and it is indeed tempting for us to be lax in our actions and deeds, so that we end up being like the people of Israel who disobeyed the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we seek the Lord anew? Shall we truly renew our efforts in finding Him, and following Him in our lives? It is indeed not an easy path, but it is truly manageable. Shall we continue our rejection of the Lord’s free offer of love, which He extended to all of us? Or shall we rather ignore Him and close the doors of our hearts to Him? The choice is ours, and we have been given free will to choose our path.

Let us therefore discern well, and use this opportunity to think well, of our actions and deeds. Let us no longer follow the rebelliousness of Satan and his fellow fallen accomplices, but let us all show and profess our undying and eternal devotion to our Lord. Remember always, brethren, that He died for us, so that we may live. There is no greater love than this, and there is no care greater than the care shown by God to us.

May Almighty God be with us all, keep us safe, and bless us with His grace forever. Amen.

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Saturday, 5 July 2014 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony Zaccaria, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests or Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Psalm 84 : 9, 11-12, 13-14

Would that I hear God’s proclamation, that He promise peace to His people, His saints – lest they come back to their folly.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Saturday, 5 July 2014 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony Zaccaria, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests or Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Amos 9 : 11-15

“On that day I shall restore the fallen hut of David and wall up its breaches and raise its ruined walls and so build it as in days of old. They shall conquer the remnant of Edom and the neighbouring nations upon which My Name has been called.” Thus says YHVH, the One who will do this.

YHVH says also, “The days are coming when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes overtake the sower. The mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall melt. I shall bring back the exiles of My people Israel; they will rebuild the desolate cities and dwell in them.”

“They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will have orchards and eat their fruit. I shall plant them in their own country and they shall never again be rooted up from the land which I have given them,” says YHVH your God.

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Thursday, 3 July 2014 : Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of one of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is St. Thomas, also known as the Twin and famously also as St. Thomas the doubter, the one whom we know in the Gospels to be the one who doubted that the Lord had risen from the dead after His Resurrection and after He had shown Himself to the Apostles except to St. Thomas, who was not with the others on that day.

And St. Thomas also voiced out openly his doubt when Jesus announced His intention to travel to Jerusalem for the last time, when He would eventually face His Passion and death, before the aforementioned Resurrection from the dead, which St. Thomas had no faith in. St. Thomas said to the other disciples, that they would go unto their death with Jesus together as they went to Jerusalem, in his own words, ‘Let us go and die together with Him.’

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this attitude which St. Thomas exhibited is truly common in our Church, and among all of us. It is easy for us to condemn others for their lack of faith, but we often fail to realise that in each one of us, we have our own ‘Thomases’ dwelling in us, and we often exhibited actions and behaviours that marks us as no better than little Thomases.

How often in our lives is it that we have so much on our hands and on our minds that we forget about God and about His existence? How often in our lives is it that we are angry at God for apparently not being there for us and accuse Him of abandoning us and ignoring us? And how many of us actually give thanks to God for His kindness and blessings in our lives, be it in big or small things? If we have done all these, or forgetting to do what is due to God, then we are just like Thomas the doubter.

But the quality of the faith that was in Thomas, was that he believed and repented his previous transgressions immediately once the Lord showed Himself to him in the fullness of His Risen glory. Thomas believed when he had seen and heard the Lord in person, to which Jesus kindly commented that, indeed that is good, but He said that how much better it would be if he had not doubted at the first place, that even without seeing the Lord, Thomas had believed.

We who believe in Jesus today, without witnessing directly the events of His life, death and resurrection are truly blessed indeed, because we believe without the need to witness directly the Lord and His majesty. But are we truly free from doubt and moments of weakness in our faith and devotion to the Lord? More often than not, this is not the case. In our lives, as history had often shown, mankind had succumbed too many times to doubt, especially in God’s providence and saving help, and came to rely on their own strength and ended up in darkness.

This is what we need to avoid, brethren, in each and every one of us. We should support each other to awaken the faith within us, that we are to have genuine faith in the Lord, one not based on blind obedience or lack of awareness of the Lord, but on the genuine faith that arise from the hearts of men. We need to follow in the example of St. Thomas and do even better than that.

Let us realise that the Lord is present, real and concrete, in the world around us through His love for us. Let us realise how much God truly cares for us, and let us doubt no longer but believe truthfully and completely place our trust in God. May we all be able to grow stronger in faith, hope and love, and make this world a truly better place for all the faithful ones in God. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 2 July 2014 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we clearly heard the account of how Jesus rebuked and cast out the demons at Gadara from two men, that the Lord is good, and as perfect goodness that He is, He is the antithesis and opposite side of evil and all forms of sin. And therefore, we too, as the children of God and His beloved ones, have our clear-cut obligations, to shun and be free from all forms of evil in sin.

There can be no compromise to sin and evil, and we should not delude ourselves by thinking that we can get cordial and friendly with the devil and all of his persuasions, and end up falling into sin and thus condemnation. We cannot be children of both God and Satan, and as Jesus had taught His disciples, we can neither be servant of both God and money. We cannot therefore be servant of both good and evil, and either we will be attracted in the end to either one or we will totally hate the other in the end, as our Lord had taught us.

This however, does not mean that we should hate and shun sinners and those who had committed grievous errors before God and mankind. Remember the saying, hate the sin but not the sinner? This is exactly the case, as we must hate and avoid the evils in the works of sin, but we must never hate the person, who has the capacity to do both good or evil. We must instead embrace and welcome them into the Lord and His love through us, that we may help each other to escape the clutches of sin.

We must work together to live holy and worthily of God, and avoid blaming or being prejudiced against anyone on the basis of their sinfulness, for we ourselves are sinners, no matter how small or big our sins are. God is merciful and loving, but He also hates sin, and sin no matter how big or small, has no place in His presence. That is why we believe those who had died righteously in the faith but still were tainted by some venial or non-mortal sins, go through the fires of purgatory to cleanse themselves from those sins before they are admitted into heaven.

Sin, brothers and sisters, is the root of all evil, and if we expose ourselves willingly to sin, we will open the doors of our hearts to all forms of evil, corrupting them for the purpose of Satan, and keep us away from the love of God. And ever since our forefathers listened to the words of Satan to disobey the Lord, we have been prone and weak towards the corrupting nature of sin. Mankind are therefore predisposed to sin, and if we do not make the active effort to avoid committing sin, we will likely commit one before God and men.

And Satan is growing in his power and in his cunningness, in his plethora of means and arsenal of things he can utilise against us, through his agents and his hands in this world. Mankind has grown accustomed to the pleasures and the growing comfort in this world, and it is through this that Satan decided to strike against men, leading them to sin by turning them towards the path of desire and greed.

Our world today is rife with individualism, egoistic and materialistic behaviour. Yes, these behaviours are prone to sin, and in our world today, we can see the direct impact, in how money and material possessions are chased after by many who seek to have more and more of them, and sadly often with disregard to the plight of others, and we even often seek to gain more, at the expense of others around us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we need to commit ourselves to a new life. Yes, a new life that is no longer based on sin and human desire, and instead based on love, justice and peace, namely a life that is based on God and on His principles and laws. Let us together help one another to reject sin and all the sinful ways of this world, and from now on resolve to love and lead a righteous life as the Lord had taught us.

May we all be truly children of God, and be like Him in all of our actions, words and deeds. May He guide us in our ways and lead us to Him, that we may be purified and absolved of our sinfulness, and emerge from the darkness of our world into a blissful life in the light. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 27 June 2014 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast that is truly important for us, that is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, celebrating the very love that God has for us, and which He had shown to us through Jesus Christ, His life and ministry, and ultimately the death He faced on the cross, all the pure and concrete show of His love for us.

Today we also celebrate the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life, that is we pray for the priests and all those who had dedicated themselves to the Lord, to keep themselves holy and faithful, that they will keep themselves, in their thoughts, in their actions and in their deeds, to be always holy and representative of the Lord, and bring glory to Him through their actions.

God had chosen them out of His people to serve them, and to be His consecrated ones, to live life in holiness, and to help spread the love He had shown to the world through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the actual and concrete manifestation of God’s love to us, the love made flesh, and the Word of God made flesh. Through Jesus God wants to tell us that He loves us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God loves us so much, and I keep on telling this to all of you repeatedly, because many of us fail to realise this, and we fail to realise how every single breath we take, and this life, are all because of His love for us. If not for His love and mercy, we would all have perished and be destroyed because of our sins and iniquities.

Instead, God who hates sin and rebellion against His will, is willing to look beyond our sinfulness and desires to welcome us back into His presence, after we have repented and changed our ways, that we leave behind our sinfulness and wicked lives, changing them for a new life in God. And He gave us the ultimate gift of His love, a concrete and real gift in Jesus, the proof of the ultimate love of God for us.

Brethren, the love of God has descended from the Lord and to us, through Jesus, whose heart is always filled with love and concern for each and every one of us. The devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is a relatively recent occurrence, having been institutionalised only a few hundred years ago. However, this was born from the desire of mankind to recognise that love which God has for each and every one of us.

The Lord does not seek our destruction or for us to perish because of our sins, unless if we ourselves refuse to be saved. As we had heard in the Gospel today, through Jesus our Lord, God wants us to come to Him and be saved. He offers freely His love for us, and He stretches His hands wide to welcome us back into His loving embrace and protection.

He will bring us enlightenment and rejuvenation if we change our ways to trust Him and repent from our past, sinful lives. But sadly, the reality is that many of us do not realise this love that God has for us, flowing freely and generously from His most loving and merciful heart. We either fear God because we fear the punishments and consequences of our sins and faults thus we fear to approach the Lord, or we are simply too engrossed in our worldly lives for us to notice this love, ending up in our ignorance of God’s love.

This devotion to the Sacred Heart and this celebration we have today is meant to remind us of God’s great love for us, which is evident and enshrined in His own Most Sacred Heart. Yes, brethren, a heart that is full of love for us, full of mercy for our plight, and full of compassion for our difficulties in this world. This is the essence of the celebration we have today, a celebration of God’s love and mercy through His Most Sacred Heart.

This love is now given to us through the extensions of His love, that is through His disciples and holy Apostles, and from them through our priests, bishops and all those who gave themselves to the service of God and His people. Our priests and all those devoted to a life of service to God through holy ordination had been entrusted with power, love and authority to be Alter Christus, or in simple terms, to be the Christ personified and living in the person of the priests.

As such, it is imperative and necessary that our priests to have that sanctity and holiness, that they may truly represent Christ in our world today. Let us all pray therefore, that our priests will be and will remain holy and thoroughly dedicated in their service to God and mankind. We pray that through the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus our Lord, they too may love tenderly and give of their love to those who are in great need for love.

Let us help one another, particularly our priests and religious, that our lives will be better aligned with the will of God, and that we will grow stronger in love and faith. God be with us all, and may the love of His Sacred Heart be with us and enter our heart, that we too may love one another and Him, just as He had loved us first. God be with us all. Amen.

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Friday, 27 June 2014 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Deuteronomy 7 : 6-11

You are a people consecrated to YHVH, your God, YHVH has chosen you from among all the peoples on the face of the earth, that you may be His own people. YHVH has bound Himself to you and has chosen you, not because you are the most numerous among all the peoples, and on the contrary, you are the least.

Rather, He has chosen you because of His love for you and to fulfill the oath He made to your fathers. Therefore, with a firm hand YHVH brought you out from slavery in Egypt, from the power of Pharaoh.

So know that YHVH, your God, is the true and faithful God. He keeps His covenant, and His love reaches to the thousandth generation for those who love Him and fulfill His commandments, but He punishes in their own persons those who hate Him and He repays them without delay.

So keep the commandments, the norms and the laws that today I command you to practice.