Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. (Deut. 28:47–48) Notice what we are told here. The solution to self-sufficiency is not to banish the goods that we used to forget God, but rather to make a point of remembering God in and through the abundance He gave to us. What was their problem?
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