Israel Urged to Obey God’s Law

4 “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which ^(A)I am teaching you to perform, so that ^(B)you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ^2 (C)You shall not add to the word which ^(D)I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. ^3 (E)Your eyes have seen what the Lord has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who followed Baal-peor, the Lord your God has destroyed ^[a]them from among you. ⁴ But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.

⁵ “See, I have taught you statutes and judgments ^(F)just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. ⁶ So keep and do them, ^(G)for that 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.’ ⁷ For ^(H)what great nation is there that has a god ^(I)so near to it as is the Lord our God ^(J)whenever we call on Him? ⁸ Or what great nation is there that has ^(K)statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

⁹ “Only ^(L)give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart ^(M)all the days of your life; but ^(N)make them known to your sons and your grandsons. ¹⁰ Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words ^(O)so they may learn to ^[b]fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may ^(P)teach their children.’ ¹¹ You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, ^(Q)and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom. ¹² Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice. ¹³ So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, ^(R)the Ten ^[c]Commandments; and ^(S)He wrote them on two tablets of stone. ¹⁴ The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it.

¹⁵ “So ^(T)watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any ^(U)form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, ¹⁶ so that you do not ^(V)act corruptly and ^(W)make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷ the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of ^(X)any winged bird that flies in the sky, ¹⁸ the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. ¹⁹ And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, ^(Y)all the host of heaven, ^(Z)and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. ²⁰ But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of ^(AA)the iron furnace, from Egypt, to ^(AB)be a people for His own possession, as today.

²¹ “^(AC)Now the Lord was angry with me on your account, and swore that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. ²² For ^(AD)I will die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this ^(AE)good land. ²³ So watch yourselves, ^(AF)that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and ^(AG)make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. ²⁴ For the Lord your God is a ^(AH)consuming fire, a ^(AI)jealous God.

²⁵ “When you ^[d]become the father of children and children’s children and have remained long in the land, and ^(AJ)act corruptly, and ^(AK)make an ^[e]idol in the form of anything, and ^(AL)do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God so as to provoke Him to anger, ²⁶ I ^(AM)call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will ^(AN)surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not ^[f]live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ The Lord will ^(AO)scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you. ^28 (AP)There you will serve gods, the work of man’s hands, ^(AQ)wood and stone, ^(AR)which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. ^29 (AS)But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him ^(AT)with all your heart and all your soul. ³⁰ When you ^(AU)are in distress and all these things have come upon you, ^(AV)in the latter days ^(AW)you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. ³¹ For the Lord your God is a ^(AX)compassionate God; ^(AY)He will not fail you nor ^(AZ)destroy you nor ^(BA)forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

³² “Indeed, ^(BB)ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the ^(BC)day that God created ^[g]man on the earth, and inquire ^(BD)from one end of the heavens to the other. ^(BE)Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? ^33 (BF)Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? ^34 (BG)Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation ^(BH)by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and ^(BI)by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, ^[h]as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵ To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; ^(BJ)there is no other besides Him. ^36 (BK)Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice ^(BL)to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. ^37 [i](BM)Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose ^[j]their descendants after them. And He ^[k](BN)personally brought you from Egypt by His great power, ³⁸ driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and ^(BO)to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. ³⁹ Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that ^(BP)the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. ^40 (BQ)So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am ^[l]giving you today, that ^(BR)it may go well with you and with your children after you, and ^(BS)that you may ^[m]live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

^41 (BT)Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan to the ^[n]east, ⁴² that a manslayer might flee there, who unintentionally slew his neighbor without having enmity toward him in time past; and by fleeing to one of these cities he might live: ^43 (BU)Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

⁴⁴ Now this is the law which Moses set before the sons of Israel; ⁴⁵ these are the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, when they came out from Egypt, ⁴⁶ across the Jordan, in the valley ^(BV)opposite Beth-peor, in the land of ^(BW)Sihon king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel ^[o]defeated when they came out from Egypt. ⁴⁷ They took possession of his land and the land of ^(BX)Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were across the Jordan to the ^[p]east, ⁴⁸ from ^(BY)Aroer, which is on the edge of the ^[q]valley of Arnon, even as far as ^(BZ)Mount Sion (that is, Hermon), ⁴⁹ with all the Arabah across the Jordan to the east, even as far as the sea of the Arabah, ^[r]at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah.