“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:
the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today,
and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.
And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.
Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:
whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.