Deuteronomy 4

1 “And now, Israel, hear the rules and the judgments, everything I am teaching you today to do — so that you may live, and become many, and go in and take the land the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. 2 You are not to add to the word I am commanding you, and you are not to take away from it: keep the commands of the Lord our God, everything I am commanding you today. 3 Your own eyes have seen everything the Lord our God did in the matter of Baal-peor; every man who followed after Baal-peor, the Lord your God destroyed from among you. 4 But you who kept close to the Lord your God are all alive today. 5 See, I have shown you rules and judgments as the Lord commanded me, so that you would do them in the land you are going into to take for your own. 6 And you are to keep them and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in front of all the nations, as many as hear all these rules. And they will say, ‘Look — this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what nation is so great that it has God as near to it as the Lord our God is to us, in everything we call on him for? 8 And what nation is so great that it has rules and judgments as righteous as all this law I set before you today?

9 Watch yourself and guard your soul carefully. Do not forget any of the things your eyes have seen, and do not let them slip out of your heart all the days of your life; and you are to teach them to your sons and your sons' sons — 10 the things that happened on the day you stood before the Lord our God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, when the Lord said to me: Gather the people to me and let them hear my words, so that they learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and teach them to their sons. 11 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire up to heaven — darkness, blackness, storm, a great voice. 12 And the Lord spoke to you out of the middle of the fire: a voice of words, which you heard. And you saw no likeness — only a voice. 13 And he announced to you his covenant, which he commanded you to keep — the ten words — and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. [a] 14 And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you rules and judgments, so that you would do them in the land you are crossing into to take for your own.

15 So guard your souls carefully — because you saw no shape at all on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb, on the mountain, out of the middle of the fire — 16 in case you go astray and make yourselves a carved image, any kind of figure, the likeness of a male or a female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies under heaven, 18 the likeness of any crawling creature that crawls on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters under the earth; 19 and in case you look up to the sky and see the sun and the moon and the stars and all the array of heaven, and are drawn away to bow down to them and serve them — things the Lord your God has handed out to all the nations under heaven. [b] 20 But God took you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be his own people, his inheritance, as you are today. 21 And the Lord God was angry with me over the things you said, and swore that I would not cross this Jordan and would not go into the land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance. 22 For I am to die in this land and will not cross this Jordan; but you are to cross over, and you will take this good land for your own. 23 Watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord our God, which he made with you, and go astray and make yourselves a carved image of any of the things the Lord your God commanded you about. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

25 When you have had sons and sons' sons, and have lived a long time in the land, and go astray and make a carved image of anything, and do wickedly before the Lord your God and provoke him — 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will certainly perish off the land you are crossing the Jordan to take for your own. You will not last long on it; you will be wiped out. 27 And the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, and you will be left few in number among all the nations the Lord brings you to. 28 And there you will serve other gods, the works of men's hands, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. 29 And there you will look for the Lord your God, and you will find him whenever you look for him with your whole heart and with your whole soul, in your distress. 30 And when all these things have come on you, in the last days, you will turn back to the Lord your God and listen to his voice. 31 Because the Lord your God is a compassionate God: he will not abandon you or destroy you; he will not forget the covenant of your fathers, which the Lord swore to them. [c]

32 Ask about the days that were before you, from the day God created man on the earth, and from one end of heaven to the other end of heaven: has anything happened like this great thing, or has anything like it ever been heard of? 33 Has a nation heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and lived? 34 Has God ever attempted to go and take for himself a nation out of the middle of another nation — with testing and with signs and with wonders and with war and with a mighty hand and an uplifted arm and with great sights — as the Lord our God did in Egypt, with you watching? 35 So that you would know that the Lord your God, he is God, and there is no other beside him. 36 His voice was made to be heard out of heaven to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words out of the middle of the fire. 37 Because he loved your fathers, he also chose you, their descendants after them, and he himself brought you out of Egypt with his great strength, 38 to destroy nations greater and stronger than you in front of you, to bring you in and give you their land as your inheritance, as it is for you today. 39 And you are to know today, and take it to heart, that the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath, and there is no other but him. 40 And keep his commands and his rules, everything I am commanding you today — so that it may go well for you and for your sons after you, and that you may live long on the earth the Lord your God is giving you forever.”

41 Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan, on the east, 42 so that a killer might flee there — anyone who had killed his neighbor without meaning to, and had not hated him beforehand; he could flee to one of these cities and live. [d] 43 They were Bezer in the wilderness, in the tableland of Reuben; and Ramoth in Gilead, belonging to Gad; and Golan in Bashan, belonging to Manasseh.

44 This is the law Moses set before the children of Israel. 45 These are the witnesses and the rules and the judgments Moses spoke to the children of Israel in the wilderness, when they came out of the land of Egypt, 46 on the other side of the Jordan, in the valley near the house of Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck down when they came out of the land of Egypt. 47 And they took his land for their own, and the land of Og king of Bashan — the two kings of the Amorites who were across the Jordan, to the east — 48 from Aroer, which is on the border of the brook Arnon, as far as the mountain of Sihon, which is Hermon, 49 and all the Arabah across the Jordan to the east, below the slopes cut in the rock.