²⁶ And when your children^(A) ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’

⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.^(A)

²⁰ In the future, when your son asks you,^(A) “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” ²¹ tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.^{(B) 22} Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. ²³ But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors. ²⁴ The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God,^(C) so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.^{(D) 25} And if we are careful to obey all this law^(E) before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.^(F)”

² Remember today that your children^(A) were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God:^(B) his majesty,^(C) his mighty hand, his outstretched arm;^{(D) 3} the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country;^{(E) 4} what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots,^(F) how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea^[a](G) as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them. ⁵ It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place, ⁶ and what he did^(H) to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened^(I) its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them. ⁷ But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done.^(J)