Deuteronomy 8:18
And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (NKJV)
But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (NIV)
But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (KJV)
Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (NLT)
You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (ESV)
But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (NASB)Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (AMP)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (AMPC)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMPC), Copyright © 1954, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
If you start thinking to yourselves, 'I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!' — well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors.
Deuteronomy 8:18 (MSG)Scripture quotations from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Covenant Wealth and the Danger of Forgetting
Remember: The Command Against the Danger of Prosperity
Deuteronomy 8 is Moses's warning against the specific spiritual danger of material prosperity. The chapter opens with the call to remember the whole way God led Israel in the wilderness (v. 2), and it closes with the warning against forgetting the Lord when silver and gold multiply (v. 13). Verse 18 sits at the hinge: after the warning of forgetting (v. 17), the command to remember is the prescribed antidote. The danger Moses identifies is not poverty but success: when the land is good and the herds multiply and the houses are full, the temptation is to say "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth" (v. 17). Verse 18 directly rebuts that attribution.
The Source of Power Is God, Not the Human Worker
The verse makes a sharp theological distinction: it is God who gives the power to get wealth. The Hebrew koach, meaning strength or ability, is attributed to God as its source. The human works, plans, and produces, but the capacity to do so is given by God. This is not a denial of human effort or responsibility. Moses is not saying that Israel should sit still and expect wealth to appear. He is saying that the koach that makes the effort effective is a divine gift, not a human achievement. The covenant purpose behind the gift is equally explicit: the wealth confirms the covenant sworn to the fathers. Prosperity in the land is covenant fulfillment, not autonomous human success.
Deuteronomy 8 frames the entire wilderness experience and Promised Land entry as a test of whether Israel would trust God or trust themselves. The wilderness was where God humbled Israel, tested them, and fed them with manna "that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (v. 3). The land of abundance that follows is its own test. Verse 18 is the answer to the test of abundance: remember that God gave the power. The same God who provided manna in the wilderness provides koach in the land of plenty. Both are covenant faithfulness. Neither is self-generated.
Application for Your Life
Every Capacity You Have Is a Gift from God
Deuteronomy 8:18 challenges the most fundamental human temptation in seasons of success: the belief that achievement is self-generated. Every gift, talent, ability, and opportunity that enables productivity and provision is given by God. This does not diminish the value of hard work. It reframes its source. You work. But the capacity to work, the mind to plan, the health to execute, the network to connect, and the doors that open are all expressions of the power God gives. Gratitude and humility, not pride and self-congratulation, are the fitting responses to prosperity.
Wealth Is a Covenant Context, Not Just a Personal Achievement
Moses ties the gift of wealth to the establishment of God's covenant with the fathers. In the new covenant, the believer's prosperity and fruitfulness is similarly embedded in a covenant context: the purposes of God being worked out through a people who belong to Him. This means that what God entrusts to His people is not simply for their personal accumulation. It is given to advance covenant purposes: blessing others, supporting the work of the kingdom, and demonstrating the faithfulness of God to a watching world. The power to get wealth is a stewardship, not merely a personal reward.
Prayer Based on This Verse
Lord, I remember You. You are the one who gives me the power to produce, to build, and to succeed. Everything I have is a gift from You. The mind that plans, the strength that works, the opportunities that open: all of it is from Your hand. Forgive me for any moment I have said in my heart that my own power achieved what I have. I attribute what I have to Your faithfulness and Your covenant love. Use everything You have entrusted to me for purposes bigger than myself. Let the abundance You give flow back toward Your kingdom and toward the people around me who need it. In Jesus name. Amen.