“When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.”
– Deuteronomy 23:9
So Deuteronomy 23:9 is in the middle of a variety of laws in Deuteronomy 23 about cleanliness and about holiness. And specifically, here, you can tell from the context, this is talking about when God’s people would be going into battle and they’re encamped against their enemies. In those moments in particular, “Keep yourself,” God says, “From every evil thing.” Knowing that our greatest need before God is purity. Think about Jesus’s words. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
God, help us to resist temptation by living in purity and holiness today.
And knowing the context here in the Old Testament, that when God’s people would go into foreign lands, they would be tempted to worship foreign gods, to adopt foreign customs, to leave behind God’s word and God’s worship, for idols and practices in immorality in those places. And God is saying, “Be pure in heart. Be pure in every way.” And if God was calling His people to keep themselves from every evil thing then, is he not calling us to do the exact same thing today?
We Pray God Keeps Us From Evil
And so we pray, God, keep us from evil. Even as you taught us to pray, Our Father in Heaven. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil today. God, we know every single one of us praying right now, listening right now, as I’m speaking right now, every single one of us is tempted. We’ll be tempted to sin today. We’ll be tempted to evil. So God, we pray, based on this picture in Deuteronomy 23:9, help us to keep ourselves from every evil thing. Every evil thought, every evil desire, every impure thought, impure desire. Evil, impure words, decisions, actions. God, help us to live in purity and holiness today, we pray in every way.
Deuteronomy 23:9 Wants God To See Us
God, we want to see you. We want to know you. We want to walk with you. Want to worship you. We want to honor and glorify you in all that we do. And so we pray you would help us to keep ourselves by your grace, by the power of your spirit in us, from every evil thing. In Jesus’s name, we pray in the name of the one who alone has power over sin and evil, and the name of the one who lives in us. By the power of Jesus’s name, we pray this. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
