² Remember how for these forty years the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the wilderness,^(A) so as to test you by affliction, to know what was in your heart: to keep his commandments, or not. ³ He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna,^(B) a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you might know that it is not by bread alone^[a] that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years.^{(C) 5} So you must know in your heart that, even as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord, your God, disciplines you.^(D)

God’s Purpose. ^12 (A)Now I urge those who read this book not to be disheartened by these misfortunes, but to consider that these punishments were meant not for the ruin but for the correction of our nation. ¹³ It is, in fact, a sign of great kindness to punish the impious promptly instead of letting them go for long. ^14 (B)Thus, in dealing with other nations, the Sovereign Lord patiently waits until they reach the full measure of their sins before punishing them; but with us he has decided to deal differently, ¹⁵ in order that he may not have to punish us later, when our sins have reached their fullness. ¹⁶ Therefore he never withdraws his mercy from us. Although he disciplines us with misfortunes, he does not abandon his own people.

I