Deuteronomy 4

Listen to the statutes and rulings

¹Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and rulings that I am teaching you to put into practice. Then you will live, and you will enter and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. ²Add nothing to the word I am commanding you, and take nothing away from it, so that you keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I am giving you. ³Your own eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor: every man who went after the Baal of Peor, the LORD your God wiped out from among you. ⁴But you who clung to the LORD your God are alive today, every one of you. ⁵See, I have taught you statutes and rulings, as the LORD my God commanded me, for you to live by in the land you are going into to take possession of. ⁶Keep them and follow them, for that is what will make you wise and understanding in the eyes of the peoples. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and understanding people.’ ⁷For what great nation has gods as near to it as the LORD our God is to us whenever we call to him?^{a 8}And what great nation has statutes and rulings as righteous as this whole law that I put before you today? ⁹Only guard yourself and keep close watch over your life, so that you do not forget what your own eyes have seen, and so that it does not leave your mind for as long as you live. Make it known to your children and your grandchildren, ¹⁰above all 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. Then they will learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and they will teach their children to do the same.’ ¹¹You drew near and stood at the base of the mountain. It was burning with fire up into the heart of the sky, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and deep gloom. ¹²Then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard words being spoken, but you saw no form at all, only a voice. ¹³He made known to you his covenant, the Ten Words, which he commanded you to keep, and he wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴At that time the LORD commanded me to teach you statutes and rulings for you to follow in the land you are crossing over to take possession of. ¹⁵Be very careful, then, for your own sake. On the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the fire, you did not see any shape at all, ¹⁶so do not bring ruin on yourselves by making an idol for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of a man or a woman, ¹⁷the likeness of any beast on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies through the sky, ¹⁸the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish in the waters beneath the land. ¹⁹Do not raise your eyes to the sky and, seeing the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, be drawn away to bow down to them and serve them. The LORD your God has allotted them to all the peoples under the whole sky.^{b 20}But you are the ones the LORD took and brought out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be his own people, his inheritance, as you are today. ²¹Because of you, the LORD was angry with me and swore that I would not go over the Jordan or come into the good land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. ²²I must die here in this land and not cross the Jordan, but you are going over, and you will take possession of this good land. ²³Watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the covenant the LORD your God made with you by making yourselves an idol shaped like anything at all, which the LORD your God has forbidden you. ²⁴For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a God who is jealous.

If you make an idol in the land

²⁵When you have had children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and you act corruptly and make an idol in the form of anything, doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, ²⁶Today I call heaven and earth to testify against you: you will soon be wiped out from the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of. You will not live long in it; you will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left a small number among the nations to which the LORD drives you. ²⁸There you will serve gods that human hands have made, wood and stone, gods that neither see nor hear, neither eat nor smell. ²⁹But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰In your distress, when all these things have overtaken you in the days to come, you will turn back to the LORD your God and obey him. ³¹For the LORD your God is a God of compassion. He will not let you go or bring you to ruin, and he will not forget the covenant he swore to your ancestors. ³²Go ahead and inquire about the past, the days that came before you, back to the day God created human beings on the earth. Search from one edge of the sky to the other. Has anything this great ever taken place? Has anything like it ever been heard? ³³Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you heard it, and live? ³⁴Or did any god ever attempt to come and take one nation for himself from within another, by trials, signs and wonders, by war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt while you watched? ³⁵You were shown all this so that you would know that the LORD is God, and that there is no other besides him. ³⁶He let you hear his voice from heaven to instruct you, and on earth he let you see his great fire; out of that fire you heard his words. ³⁷He loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, and for that reason he himself brought you out of Egypt with his great power,^{c 38}driving out ahead of you nations bigger and mightier than you, to bring you in and give you their land as your inheritance, as it now is. ³⁹So know this today, and take it to heart: the LORD is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, and there is no other. ⁴⁰Keep his statutes and his commandments that I command you today, and things will go well for you and for your children after you, and you will have long life in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”^d

Three cities across the Jordan

⁴¹Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan, to the east, ⁴²so that anyone who had killed a neighbor by accident, without having been an enemy beforehand, could flee there. By fleeing to one of these cities, that person could stay alive. ⁴³They were Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites. ⁴⁴This is the law that Moses laid before the Israelites. ⁴⁵These are the decrees, statutes, and rulings that Moses spoke to the Israelites after they came out of Egypt, ⁴⁶across the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon. Moses and the Israelites defeated him after they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷They took possession of his land and of the land of Og king of Bashan, those two kings of the Amorites who ruled across the Jordan, toward the sunrise, ⁴⁸from Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Siyon, that is, Hermon,^{e 49}and all the Arabah across the Jordan to the east, as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.