The Promised Land is a beautiful land, but in this land and especially beyond its borders, live people and nations who worship other gods. The danger of conformity lurks around the corner, especially if it would generate sympathy and financial gain.
That is why, before they enter, Moses emphatically underscores that the Lord will never accept this. He wants to remain the only one!
(Deuteronomy 6:4). He is, as it is written in Hebrew, an el qanna—a God who asserts himself. When they later begin to serve other gods in the good land, the Lord will be offended in his honour and in his justice.
The consequences of the people's unfaithfulness will then be terrible. They will feel his wrath with the utmost pain; indeed, they will be wiped off the face of the earth.
Note: The words el qanna also appear in the Second Commandment (Exodus 20:5) to emphatically warn the delivered people from Egypt never to bow down to other gods. The fact that the Lord is serious about this is also evident from the way in which the Lord revealed himself: Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke, because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the mountain quaked greatly
(Exodus 19:18; see also Exodus 20:18; Exodus 24:17). This is how impressively the Lord presents himself throughout Scripture (read Isaiah 29:6; Isaiah 30:27 and Hebrews 12:18–19). That is why we read at the beginning of Hebrews 12:25: See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.
Woe to anyone who does so! We need to remember this today as well. The Lord is never mocked.
14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you