4 Now listen and give heed, O Israel, to the statutes and ordinances which I teach you, and do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you.
2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.
3 Your eyes still see what the Lord did because of Baal-peor; for all the men who followed the Baal of Peor the Lord your God has destroyed from among you,(A)
4 But you who clung fast to the Lord your God are alive, every one of you, this day.
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land which you are entering to possess.
6 So keep them and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
7 For what great nation is there who has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is to us in all things for which we call upon Him?
8 And what large and important nation has statutes and ordinances so upright and just as all this law which I set before you today?
9 Only take heed, and guard your life diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your [mind and] heart all the days of your life. Teach them to your children and your children’s children—
10 Especially how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, the Lord said to me, Gather the people together to Me and I will make them hear My words, that they may learn [reverently] to fear Me all the days they live upon the earth and that they may teach their children.
11 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick gloom.
12 And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the voice of the words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.
13 And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tables of stone.
14 And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and precepts, that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.
15 Therefore take good heed to yourselves, since you saw no form of Him on the day the Lord spoke to you on Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
16 Beware lest you become corrupt by making for yourselves [to worship] a graven image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17 The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, or of any winged fowl that flies in the air,
18 The likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth.
19 And beware lest you lift up your eyes to the heavens, and when you see the sun, moon, and stars, even all the host of the heavens, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things which the Lord your God has allotted to all nations under the whole heaven.
20 But the Lord has taken you and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to Him a people of His own possession, as you are this day.
21 Furthermore the Lord was angry with me because of you, and He swore that I should not go over the Jordan and that I should not enter the good land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.
22 But I must die in this land; I must not cross the Jordan; but you shall go over and possess that good land.
23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you.
24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25 When children shall be born to you, and children’s children, and you have grown old in the land, if you corrupt yourselves by making a graven image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God, provoking Him to anger,
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you shall soon utterly perish from the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it but will be utterly destroyed.
27 And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.
28 There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.
29 But if from there you will seek (inquire for and require as necessity) the Lord your God, you will find Him if you [truly] seek Him with all your heart [and mind] and soul and life.
30 When you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you, in the latter days you will turn to the Lord your God and be obedient to His voice.
31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not fail you or destroy you or forget the covenant of your fathers, which He swore to them.
32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from one end of the heavens to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever occurred or been heard of anywhere.
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you heard, and live?
34 Or has God ever tried to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 To you it was shown, that you might realize and have personal knowledge that the Lord is God; there is no other besides Him.
36 Out of heaven He made you hear His voice, that He might correct, discipline, and admonish you; and on earth He made you see His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire.
37 And because He loved your fathers, He chose their descendants after them, and brought you out from Egypt with His own Presence, by His mighty power,
38 Driving out nations from before you, greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day;
39 Know, recognize, and understand therefore this day and turn your [mind and] heart to it that the Lord is God in the heavens above and upon the earth beneath; there is no other.
40 Therefore you shall keep His statutes and His commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God gives you forever.
41 Then Moses set apart three cities [of refuge] beyond the Jordan to the east,
42 That the manslayer might flee there, who slew his neighbor unintentionally and had not previously been at enmity with him, that fleeing to one of these cities he might save his life:
43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.
44 This is the law which Moses set before the Israelites.
45 These are the testimonies and the laws and the precepts which Moses spoke to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt,
46 Beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the Israelites smote when they came out of Egypt.
47 And they took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who lived beyond the Jordan to the east,
48 From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, as far as Mount Sirion (that is, Hermon),
49 And all the Arabah (lowlands) beyond the Jordan eastward, as far as the Sea of the Arabah [the Dead Sea], under the slopes and springs of Pisgah.
Cross references
- Deuteronomy 4:3 : Num. 25:1-9.
