¹ Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
² And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry.
³ And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
⁴ But he answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
⁵ Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple,
⁶ and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will give his angels charge of you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"
⁷ Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'"
⁸ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them;
⁹ and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
¹⁰ Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! for it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'"
¹¹ Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

• Testing is done before a covenant, to see whether the other partner will be faithful or not. In the covenant with God, God can test Israel, but Israel should not test God.
• Moses (Deut 9:18) and Elijah (1Kgs 19:8) also fasted for 40 days.
• First temptation: Israel did not like manna and demanded earthly food (Ps 78:18-20), thus failed the test. Jesus did not fail.
• In response to each of the temptations, Jesus quoted Moses' summarizing advice to Israel (Deut 6-8).
• In the second temptation, Jesus refused to test God's promise.
• "Pay homage" was done by the three magis (Mt 2:2-11), and by the disciples after Jesus' resurection (Mt 28:17).
• "Go away, Satan" was also to addressed to Peter when he opposed Jesus' prediction of his passion (Mt 16:21-23). "Satan" means enemy.

Jesus is the obedient Son of God.

God tested Israel in the wilderness for 40 years, and they failed with doubts, complaining, idolatry, disobedience, and testing God back. At the end, Moses urged Israel to learn from their sins and test God no more. Jesus was tested in the wilderness for 40 days. He quoted Moses, obeyed God, did not test God, and thus passed the test and proved to be the true Son of God, worthy of a covenant with God.

1. How would Jesus be after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness? What is the wilderness, the testing ground, in my life?

2. What are my temptations to test God? How have I responded? How should I respond? What can I do to prepare for future tests?

3. What is my covenance with God, and how much do I value it?

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A synthesis by the Vietnamese Christian Life (Dong Hanh) Community