Deuteronomy 4

Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and judgments that I am teaching you to do, so that you may live, enter, and possess the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word I command you or take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you every man who followed Baal-peor. But you who hold fast to the LORD your God are alive today, every one of you. Look, I have taught you statutes and judgments, as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may do them in the land you are entering to possess. Keep them and do them, for this is your wisdom and understanding before the eyes of the peoples, who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people.’ For what great nation has gods as near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call upon him? And what great nation has statutes and judgments as righteous as all this law that I set before you today? Only take care and guard your soul very carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children: the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth and teach their children.’ You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick gloom. The LORD spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form, only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. At that time the LORD commanded me to teach you statutes and judgments for you to do in the land you are crossing over to possess. Guard your souls very carefully, for you saw no form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, lest you corrupt yourselves and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish in the waters beneath the earth; and lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away to bow down to them and serve them, which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under all heaven. But the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his inheritance, as you are this day. The LORD was angry with me on your account and swore that I would not cross the Jordan or enter the good land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. For I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you will cross over and possess this good land. Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. When you have children and children’s children and have lived long in the land, if you corrupt yourselves, make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the eyes of the LORD your God to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will surely perish quickly from the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days in it, but will surely be destroyed. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD leads you. There you will serve gods made by human hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. Ask now about the former days that were before you, since the day God created human beings on the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other: Has anything like this great thing ever happened, or has anything like it been heard? Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and lived? Or has any god attempted to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, and great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? You were shown this so that you might know that the LORD is God. There is no other besides him. From heaven he let you hear his voice to instruct you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire. Because he loved your fathers and chose his descendants after him, he brought you out of Egypt with his presence and his great power, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you, to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. Know therefore today and take to heart that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no other. You shall keep his statutes and his commandments that I command you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, and so that you may prolong your days in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for all time.” Then Moses set apart three cities beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, so that a killer who killed his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him previously, might flee there. He could flee to one of these cities and live: Bezer in the wilderness, in the plateau country, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites. This is the law that Moses set before the Israelites. These are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments that Moses spoke to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt, beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. Moses and the Israelites defeated him when they came out of Egypt, and took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, from Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Valley to Mount Sion, that is, Hermon, and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan to the east, as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.

Rights and attribution