Deuteronomy 4

¹And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances that I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in and possess the land that YHWH, God of your fathers, is giving to you.

²You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of YHWH your God that I command you.

³Your eyes have seen what YHWH did at Baal-peor, for all the men who walked after Baal-Peor YHWH your God has destroyed from among you.

⁴And you, the ones clinging to YHWH your God, are alive, all of you today.

⁵See, I have taught you statutes and ordinances as YHWH my God commanded me, that you should act accordingly in the midst of the land that you are going there to possess it.

⁶Therefore, be careful and observe them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, “Surely a wise and understanding people is this great nation.”

⁷For what is the great nation that has a god near to it as YHWH our God is to us in all that we call upon Him?

⁸And what is the great nation that has righteous statutes and ordinances according to all this law that I set before you this day?

⁹Only take heed to yourself and keep yourself diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; and teach them to your sons and to the sons of your sons.

¹⁰That day you stood before the face of YHWH your God in Horeb, when YHWH said to me, “Gather to Me the people 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 sons.”

¹¹And you came near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with the fire to the heart of the heavens, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness,

¹²and YHWH spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, and you saw no form, only a voice.

¹³And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform—the Ten Words. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

¹⁴And me YHWH commanded at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might observe them in the land that you are passing over to possess.

¹⁵And guard greatly your souls, for you did not see any form when YHWH spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,

¹⁶lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves 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, or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,

¹⁸the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth.

¹⁹And lest you lift up your eyes to the heavens and you see the sun and the moon and the stars—all the host of the heavens—and you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which YHWH your God has given as a heritage to all the peoples under the whole heavens.

²⁰And YHWH has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to Him for a people, as an inheritance this day.

²¹And YHWH was angry with me because of your words, and He swore that I would not pass over the Jordan, that I would not enter into the good land that YHWH your God is giving to you as an inheritance,

²²but I must die in this land. I am not passing over the Jordan, and you shall pass over and possess this good land.

²³Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of YHWH your God that He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything that YHWH your God has forbidden you.

²⁴For YHWH your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

²⁵When you beget sons and sons of sons and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the eyes of YHWH your God to provoke Him to anger,

²⁶I call to witness against you this day the heavens and the earth that you will surely perish quickly from the land to which you are passing over the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days in it, but you will be utterly destroyed.

²⁷And YHWH will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to which YHWH will drive you.

²⁸And you will serve gods there—the work of the hands of man—wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

²⁹And you will seek from there YHWH your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

³⁰When you are in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days, and you turn to YHWH your God and obey His voice—

³¹for a merciful God is YHWH your God—He will not forsake you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant of your fathers that He swore to them.

³²For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you since the day that God created man on the earth, and from one end of the heavens and to the other of the heavens, whether there has been as this great thing, or has there been heard like it?

³³Has a people heard the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire—as you have heard yourself—and live?

³⁴Or has God attempted to come to take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that YHWH your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

³⁵It was shown to you, that you might know that YHWH, He is God; there is none other besides Him.

³⁶From the heavens He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you, and on the earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire.

³⁷And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them, and He brought you out with His face, with His mighty power, from Egypt,

³⁸to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you from before you, to bring you in to give to you their land as an inheritance, as on this day.

³⁹Therefore know this day and return it to your heart that YHWH, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

⁴⁰And you shall keep His statutes and His commandments that I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, that you may prolong your days in the land that YHWH your God is giving to you—all the days.

⁴¹Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan toward the rising of the sun,

⁴²for to flee there the manslayer who kills his neighbor without knowing, and he without having hated him from yesterday and the day before yesterday, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might live:

⁴³Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau, for the Reubenite; and Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadite; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassite.

⁴⁴And this is the law that Moses set before the sons of Israel.

⁴⁵These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances that Moses spoke to the sons of Israel after they came out of Egypt,

⁴⁶on this side of the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorite, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated after they came out of Egypt.

⁴⁷And they took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan—two kings of the Amorite who were on this side of the Jordan toward the rising of the sun—

⁴⁸from Aroer, which is on the bank of the River Arnon, and to Mount Siyon, that is, Hermon,

⁴⁹and all the plain on the east side of the Jordan, and as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.