Observe what I command you this day is literally “guard to you [singular] what I am commanding you today.” The participle suggests the meaning “which I am about to command you,” so the reference is evidently to “the laws” (Good News Translation) that are given in the following verses. (The Hebrew word is related to mitswah, discussed in the introductory comments to 20.22-26.) The use of the singular you, both here and throughout the section, refers to each Israelite, both singularly and collectively. (See the introduction to chapter 20.) Contemporary English Version reorders the clauses of the verse as follows: “I will force out the Amorites…, but you must do what I command you this day.” Another way to express this is “… but you must obey all the laws that I am giving you today.”

Behold calls attention to who is speaking as well as to what is being said. Literally it is “behold me [the] driver out from before your faces.” Again the participle may be understood as “I am going to drive out” (Translator’s Old Testament). The Amorites begins another listing of the six different nations or ethnic groups that were living in the land where the Israelites were to go. (See the comment at 3.8 and at 13.5.)

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .