4 1 An exhortation to observe the law without adding thereto or diminishing. 6 Therein standeth our wisdom. 9 We must teach it to our children. 15 No image ought to be made to worship. 26 Threatenings against them that forsake the Law of God. 37 God chose the seed because he loved their fathers.
1 Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the ordinances and to the laws which I teach you to do, that ye may live and go in, and possess the land, which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you.
2 (A)Ye shall put nothing unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye take ought there from, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.
3 Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal Peor, for all the men that followed Baal Peor, the Lord thy God hath destroyed every one from among you.
4 But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God, are alive every one of you this day.
5 Behold, I have taught you ordinances, and laws, as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do even so within the land whither ye go to possess it.
6 Keep them therefore, and do them: for that is your wisdom, and your understanding in the sight of the people, which shall hear all these ordinances, and shall say, Only this people is wise, and of understanding, and a great nation.
7 For what nation is so great, unto whom the gods come so near unto them, as the Lord our God is, near unto us, in all that we call unto him for?
8 And what nation is so great, that hath ordinances and laws so righteous, as all this Law, which I set before you this day?
9 But take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, that thou forget not the things which thine eyes have seen, and that they depart not out of thine heart, all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons:
10 Forget not the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will cause them to hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children:
11 Then came you near and (B)stood under the mountain, and the mountain burnt with fire unto the midst of heaven, and there was darkness, clouds and mist.
12 And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire, and ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, save a voice.
13 Then he declared unto you his covenant which he commanded you to do, even the ten commandments, and wrote them upon two Tables of stone.
14 ¶ And the Lord commanded me that same time, that I should teach you ordinances and laws, which ye should observe in the land, whither ye go, to possess it.
15 Take therefore good heed unto your selves: for ye saw no image in the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:
16 That ye corrupt not yourselves, and make you a graven image, or representation of any figure: whether it be the likeness of male or female,
17 The likeness of any beast that is on earth, or the likeness of any feathered fowl that flieth in the air:
18 Or the likeness of anything that creepeth on the earth, or the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth,
19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars with all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath distributed to all people under the whole heaven.
20 But the Lord hath taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt to be unto him a people and inheritance, as appeareth this day.
21 And the Lord was angry with me for your words, and sware that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto that good land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
22 For I must die in this land, and shall not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.
23 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you, and lest ye make you any graven image, or likeness of anything, as the Lord thy God hath charged thee.
24 For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, and a jealous God.
25 ¶ When thou shalt beget children and children’s children, and shalt have remained long in the land, if ye corrupt yourselves, and make any graven image, or likeness of anything, and work evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke him to anger,
26 I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that ye shall shortly perish from the land, whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it: ye shall not prolong your days therein, but shall utterly be destroyed.
27 And the Lord shall scatter you among the people, and ye shall be left few in number among the nations, whither the Lord shall bring you:
28 And there ye shall serve gods: even the work of man’s hand, wood, and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.
30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, at the length, if thou return to the Lord thy God, and be obedient unto his voice,
31 (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which he sware unto them.
32 For inquire now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one end of heaven unto the other, if there came to pass such a great thing as this, or whether any such like thing hath been heard.
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of a fire, as thou hast heard, and lived?
34 Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from among nations, by tentations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great fear, according unto all that the Lord your God did unto you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God, and that there is none but he alone.
36 Out of heaven he made thee hear his voice to instruct thee, and upon earth he showed thee his great fire, and thou heardest his voice out of the midst of the fire.
37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and hath brought thee out of Egypt in his sight by his mighty power,
38 To thrust out nations greater and mightier than thou, before thee, to bring thee in, and to give thee their land for inheritance: as appeareth this day.
39 Understand therefore this day, and consider in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none other.
40 Thou shalt keep therefore his ordinances, and his commandments which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee forever.
41 ¶ Then Moses separated three cities on this side of Jordan toward the sun rising:
42 That the slayer should flee thither, which had killed his neighbor at unawares, and hated him not in time past, might flee, I say, unto one of those cities, and live:
43 That is, (C)Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country of the Reubenites: and Ramoth in Gilead among the Gadites: and Golan in Bashan among them of Manasseh.
44 ¶ So this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel.
45 These are the witnesses, and the ordinances, and the laws which Moses declared to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt.
46 On this side Jordan, in the valley over against Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon King of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel (D)smote, after they were come out of Egypt:
47 And they possessed his land, and the land of (E)Og King of Bashan, two Kings of the Amorites, which were on this side Jordan toward the sun rising:
48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon,
49 And all the plain from Jordan Eastward, even unto the Sea of the plain, under the (F)springs of Pisgah.
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 4:1
- Deuteronomy 4:2
- Deuteronomy 4:2
- Deuteronomy 4:3
- Deuteronomy 4:4
- Deuteronomy 4:6
- Deuteronomy 4:6
- Deuteronomy 4:7
- Deuteronomy 4:9
- Deuteronomy 4:11
- Deuteronomy 4:13
- Deuteronomy 4:13
- Deuteronomy 4:15
- Deuteronomy 4:15
- Deuteronomy 4:19
- Deuteronomy 4:20
- Deuteronomy 4:22
- Deuteronomy 4:24
- Deuteronomy 4:25
- Deuteronomy 4:26
- Deuteronomy 4:27
- Deuteronomy 4:29
- Deuteronomy 4:30
- Deuteronomy 4:31
- Deuteronomy 4:32
- Deuteronomy 4:34
- Deuteronomy 4:35
- Deuteronomy 4:37
- Deuteronomy 4:40
- Deuteronomy 4:45
- Deuteronomy 4:49
Cross references
- Deuteronomy 4:2 : Deut. 12:32
- Deuteronomy 4:11 : Exod. 19:18
- Deuteronomy 4:43 : Josh. 20:8
- Deuteronomy 4:46 : Num. 21:24; Deut. 1:4
- Deuteronomy 4:47 : Num. 21:33; Deut. 3:3
- Deuteronomy 4:49 : Deut. 3:17
