My merits & righteousness – Ekev
Deut. 9:4 offers good advice to people who think too highly of themselves.
A person should not boast that his or her own righteousness was why Israel inherited the Promised Land, even though it was because of the wickedness of the inhabitants of the nations that they were driven out by God.
The Torah often warns us not to show off or to say that our own merits were what earned us the reward of life in the Land. The fact might be that we were generally law-abiding and of good moral character, but self-pride was (and is) a sin.
It is true that the wickedness of the nations lost them the Holy Land, but if we gloat too much, the Almighty could well decide to banish us too.
