The Text of the Shema

The three paragraphs of the shema, drawn from Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 12, and Numbers 15.

Reprinted with permission from the Jewish Publication Society.

 

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.

 

(Praised be the name of the glory of God's sovereignty for ever and ever)

 

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

 

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Lord your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil--I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle--and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For the Lord's anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is giving you. Therefore impress these My words upon your heart and in your soul, bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, and teach them to your children--reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the door­posts of your house and on your gates-- to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth.

 

The Lord said to Moses as follows: Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner. That shall be your fringe, look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge. Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My command­ments and to be holy to your God. I the Lord am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I, the Lord your God.