The Bible

Deuteronomy Chapter 4

¹Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances which I teach you, to do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ²Don't add to the word which I command you, nor take away from it, so that you keep Yahweh your God's commandments which I command you. ³Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for Yahweh your God has destroyed all the men who followed Baal Peor from among you. ⁴But all of you who were faithful to Yahweh your God are alive today. ⁵Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land which you are entering to possess. ⁶So, keep [them] and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." ⁷For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him? ⁸What great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you today?

⁹Only be careful, and diligently keep your soul, otherwise you'll forget the things which your eyes have seen, and they'll depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children- ¹⁰that day when you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb, and Yahweh said to me, "Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children." ¹¹You came near and stood at the base of the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. ¹²Yahweh spoke to you from the middle of the fire. You heard a voice [speak] words, but you saw no form, [there was only] a voice. ¹³He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it. ¹⁵Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you in Horeb from the middle of the fire, ¹⁶otherwise you'll corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, ¹⁸the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the land; ¹⁹and in case you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve those which Yahweh your God has given to all the peoples under the whole sky. ²⁰But Yahweh has taken you, and brought you [here] out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today. ²¹Furthermore Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land which Yahweh your God is giving you for an inheritance. ²²I will die in this land. I can't go over the Jordan, but you'll go over and possess that good land. ²³Be careful, otherwise you'll forget Yahweh your God's covenant, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you. ²⁴For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God. ²⁵When you father children and children's children, and you have been in the land [for a] long [time], and then corrupt yourselves, and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do what is evil in Yahweh your God's sight to provoke him to anger; ²⁶I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess; you won't prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will lead you away. ²⁸There you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which don't see, or hear, or eat, or smell. ²⁹But from there you will seek Yahweh your God, and you will find [him] if you search [for him] with all your heart and all your soul. ³⁰When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you will return to Yahweh your God and listen to his voice. ³¹For Yahweh your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you or destroy you, or forget the covenant which he swore to your fathers. ³²For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the sky to the other, whether there has been [anything] as great as this, or has [anything] been heard of like it? ³³Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of a fire, as you have heard, and [still] live? ³⁴Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among [another] nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, exactly as Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt [right] before your eyes? ³⁵It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh is God. There is no one else besides him. ³⁶Out of heaven he made you hear his voice, that he might instruct you. On earth he made you see his great fire; and you heard his words from the middle of the fire. ³⁷Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their offspring after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt; ³⁸to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. ³⁹Know therefore today, and take it to heart, that Yahweh himself is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no one else. ⁴⁰Keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which Yahweh your God is giving you for all time.

⁴¹Then Moses set apart three cities beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, ⁴²so a manslayer might flee there, [someone] who's killed his neighbor unintentionally and didn't hate him before then. [So that by] fleeing to one of these cities he might live: ⁴³Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

⁴⁴This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. ⁴⁵These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt, ⁴⁶beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck when they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷They 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; ⁴⁸from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, as far as Mount Zion (also called Hermon), ⁴⁹and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.