4 ¶ Now, therefore, hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rights which I teach you, for in doing them ye shall live and go in and inherit the land which the LORD God of your fathers gives you.

² Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish anything from it, 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 Baalpeor; for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD thy God has destroyed them 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 statutes and rights, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do thus in the midst of the land where ye are about to enter in to possess it.

⁶ Keep them, therefore, and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who shall hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

⁷ For what nation is there so great who has God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?

⁸ And what nation is there so great that has statutes and rights so just as all this law, which I set before you this day?

⁹ Therefore, take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, but teach them to thy sons and thy sons’ sons.

¹⁰ The day that thou didst stand before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather the people together unto me, and I will make them 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 sons.

¹¹ And ye came near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of the heavens, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.

¹² And the LORD spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no likeness; only ye heard a voice.

¹³ And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, the ten words; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.

¹⁴ And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and rights that ye might do them in the land which ye are about to enter to possess.

¹⁵ Diligently guard, therefore, your souls, for ye saw no manner of likeness on the day that the LORD spoke unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire,

¹⁶ lest ye corrupt yourselves and make yourselves a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

¹⁷ the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flies in the air,

¹⁸ the likeness of any animal that moves on the ground, 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, even all the host of heaven, and should be driven to worship them and serve them because the LORD thy God has conceded them unto all the peoples under all the heavens.

²⁰ But the LORD has taken you and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him the people of his inheritance, as ye are this day.

²¹ Furthermore, the LORD was angry with me for your sakes and swore that I should not go over Jordan and that I should not go in unto that good land, which the LORD thy God gives thee for an inheritance.

²² Therefore, I must die in this land and will not pass the Jordan, but ye shall pass and inherit that good land.

²³ Keep yourselves, do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he established with you, and make yourselves a graven image or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God has forbidden thee.

²⁴ For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

²⁵ When thou shalt beget children and grandchildren and ye shall have remained long in the land and shall corrupt yourselves and make a graven image or the likeness of any thing and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger,

²⁶ I put heaven and earth as witnesses today that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land unto which ye pass the Jordan to inherit it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it without being utterly destroyed.

²⁷ And the LORD shall scatter you among the peoples, and ye shall be left few in number among the Gentiles, unto whom the LORD shall take you.

²⁸ And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

²⁹ But if from there, thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

³⁰ When thou art in trouble and all these things are come upon thee, if in the latter days thou shalt turn to the LORD thy God and shalt hear 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 swore unto them.

³² Ask, therefore, 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 side of heaven unto the other whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has any other been heard like it?

³³ Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and lived?

³⁴ Or has God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs and by wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

³⁵ Unto thee it was shown that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is no one else other than he.

³⁶ Out of the heavens he made thee to hear his voice that he might instruct thee, and upon earth he showed thee his great fire, and thou hast heard his words out of the midst of the fire.

³⁷ And because he loved thy fathers, therefore, he chose their seed after them and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt,

³⁸ to drive out Gentiles from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.

³⁹ Know therefore this day and consider it in thine heart that the LORD is the only God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is no other.

⁴⁰ Thou shalt keep, therefore, his statutes and his commandments which I command thee this day that it may go well with thee and with thy sons after thee and that thou may prolong thy days upon the land which the LORD thy God gives thee, for ever.

⁴¹ ¶ Then Moses separated three cities on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrising

⁴² that the manslayer might flee there, who should kill his neighbour unawares and hated him not in times past and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live:

⁴³ Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead, of the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites.

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

⁴⁵ These are the testimonies and the statutes and the rights, which Moses spoke unto the sons of Israel after they came forth out of Egypt,

⁴⁶ on this side of the Jordan, in the valley over against Bethpeor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel smote after they were come forth out of Egypt;

⁴⁷ and they possessed his land and the land of Og, king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrising.

⁴⁸ From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even unto Mount Sion, which is Hermon,

⁴⁹ and all the plain on this side of the Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.