Because he loved your ancestors, he chose you, and by his great power he himself brought you out of Egypt.

"After the LORD your God has driven them out for you, do not say to yourselves that he brought you in to possess this land because you deserved it. No, the LORD is going to drive these people out for you because they are wicked.

It is not because you are good and do what is right that the LORD is letting you take their land. He will drive them out because they are wicked and because he intends to keep the promise that he made to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But the LORD's love for your ancestors was so strong that he chose you instead of any other people, and you are still his chosen people.

The LORD has made a solemn promise, and he will not abandon you, for he has decided to make you his own people.

He helped me out of danger; he saved me because he was pleased with me.

Your people did not conquer the land with their swords; they did not win it by their own power; it was by your power and your strength, by the assurance of your presence, which showed that you loved them.

I will give up whole nations to save your life, because you are precious to me and because I love you and give you honor.

I appeared to them from far away. People of Israel, I have always loved you, so I continue to show you my constant love.

The LORD your God is with you; his power gives you victory. The LORD will take delight in you, and in his love he will give you new life. He will sing and be joyful over you,

Yes, Father, this was how you were pleased to have it happen.

But God's mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great,

that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved.

We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth.

God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and wrong. We were slaves to passions and pleasures of all kinds. We spent our lives in malice and envy; others hated us and we hated them.

he saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us.

so that by his grace we might be put right with God and come into possession of the eternal life we hope for.

We love because God first loved us.

"I make a vow by my own name---the LORD is speaking---that I will richly bless you. Because you did this and did not keep back your only son from me,

All the nations will ask me to bless them as I have blessed your descendants---all because you obeyed my command."

Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Remember the solemn promise you made to them to give them as many descendants as there are stars in the sky and to give their descendants all that land you promised would be their possession forever."

He will keep his covenant forever, his promises for a thousand generations.

The LORD made a covenant with Jacob, one that will last forever.

He has remembered to show mercy to Abraham and to all his descendants forever!"

He said he would show mercy to our ancestors and remember his sacred covenant.

With a solemn oath to our ancestor Abraham he promised to rescue us from our enemies and allow us to serve him without fear,

When God made his promise to Abraham, he made a vow to do what he had promised. Since there was no one greater than himself, he used his own name when he made his vow.

Abraham was patient, and so he received what God had promised.

To those who were to receive what he promised, God wanted to make it very clear that he would never change his purpose; so he added his vow to the promise.

But you are the people he rescued from Egypt, that blazing furnace. He brought you out to make you his own people, as you are today.

Has any god ever dared to go and take a people from another nation and make them his own, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt? Before your very eyes he used his great power and strength; he brought plagues and war, worked miracles and wonders, and caused terrifying things to happen.

On the day the 430 years ended, all the tribes of the LORD's people left Egypt.

It was a night when the LORD kept watch to bring them out of Egypt; this same night is dedicated to the LORD for all time to come as a night when the Israelites must keep watch.

Moses said to the people, "Remember this day---the day on which you left Egypt, the place where you were slaves. This is the day the LORD brought you out by his great power. No leavened bread is to be eaten.

In the future, when your son asks what this observance means, you will answer him, 'By using great power the LORD brought us out of Egypt, the place where we were slaves.

"I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, where you were slaves.