Deuteronomy
Chapter 4
1 Listen, Israel, to the rules and decisions I am teaching you. Follow them so you may live and enter and own the land God of your ancestors is giving you.
2 Do not add anything to what I tell you, and do not take anything away from it, so you can follow God’s commands that I give you.
3 Your eyes saw what God did because of Baalpeor: God destroyed everyone who followed Baalpeor from among you.
4 But all of you who stayed close to God are still alive today.
5 Look, I have taught you rules and decisions, just as God, my God, told me, so that you can follow them in the land you are going to make your own.
6 So keep and follow these laws, because this is how you will show your wisdom and understanding to other nations. When they hear about these rules, they will say, “This great nation is surely wise and understanding.”
7 What nation is so great that has God close to them like our God whenever we call on Him?
8 What nation is as great as this one, with laws and rules as fair as all these that I give you today?
9 Be careful and pay close attention to yourself. Work hard to remember what you’ve seen, so you won’t forget it as long as you live. And make sure to teach it to your children and grandchildren.
10 Especially the day you stood before God at Horeb, when God told me, ‘Bring the people together, and I will let them hear my words, so they will learn to respect me all their lives on earth, and they will teach their children.’
11 You came close and stood at the foot of the mountain; the mountain was on fire up to the middle of the sky, with darkness, clouds, and deep darkness.
12 God spoke to you from the fire: you heard the sound of words but saw no form; you just heard a voice.
13 He told you his agreement, which he ordered you to follow, the ten orders; and he wrote them on two stone tablets.
14 At that time, God told me to teach you rules and laws, so you could follow them in the land you are going to make your own.
15 Be very careful about how you live; because you did not see anything when God spoke to you at Horeb from the fire.
16 Be careful not to ruin yourselves by making an idol in the shape of anything, man or woman.
17 The image of any animal on the ground, the image of any bird with wings that flies in the sky,
18 The image of anything that crawls on the land, the image of any fish that lives in the water under the earth.
19 Be careful not to look up at the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars—all the heavenly bodies—and feel tempted to bow down and worship them. These are things God has shared with all nations under heaven.
20 But God has chosen you and led you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be his own people, just as you are today.
21 God was angry with me because of you and swore that I would not cross the Jordan or enter the good land that God is giving you to inherit.
22 But I must die in this land, I cannot cross the Jordan River; but you will cross and take over that good land.
23 Be careful and do not forget the agreement with God, who made it with you. Do not create any carved idol or image of anything that God has told you not to.
24 God is like a fire that burns everything up, and he is a God who wants your complete loyalty.
25 When you have children and grandchildren, and have lived in the land for a long time, if you become corrupt and make an idol, or a image of anything, and do wrong in the eyes of God, to make him angry:
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: you will soon completely die from the land you are crossing Jordan to own; you will not live long there, but will be totally destroyed.
27 God will spread you out among many countries, and there will be only a few of you left among the nations where God will take you.
28 And there you will worship gods made by human hands, out of wood and stone, that can’t see, hear, eat, or smell.
29 If you look for God there, you will find him if you search with all your heart and soul.
30 When you are in trouble and all these things happen to you, even in the future, if you turn to God and listen to his voice;
31 God is merciful; he will not abandon you or destroy you and will remember the promise he made to your ancestors.
32 Ask about the past days, before your time, since God made humans on earth, and check from one end of the sky to the other if anything as great as this has ever happened or been heard of.
33 Has any nation ever heard God’s voice speaking from fire, as you have, and survived?
34 Has God ever tried to create a nation from within another nation, using tests, signs, miracles, war, strong power, an extended reach, and big fears, just as God did for you in Egypt while you watched?
35 You were shown this so you would know that God is the only God; there is no other besides him.
36 From heaven, God let you hear his voice to teach you. On earth, he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from inside the fire.
37 Because God loved your ancestors, he picked their descendants after them and led you out of Egypt with his great power.
38 To push out nations from in front of you, greater and stronger than you, to bring you in and to give you their land as your own, just like today.
39 Understand today, and think deeply in your heart, that God is the only God in heaven above and on earth below.
40 You must follow God’s laws and commands that I give you today, so things go well for you and your children, and you live a long time on the land that God gives you forever.
41 Then Moses set apart three cities east of the Jordan river.
42 The person who accidentally killed their neighbor, without previous hate, could run to one of these cities to live.
43 Bezer in the desert, in the flat land for the people of Reuben; Ramoth in Gilead for the people of Gad; and Golan in Bashan for the people of Manasseh.
44 This is the rule that Moses gave to the people of Israel:
45 These are the rules, laws, and decisions that Moses told the people of Israel after they left Egypt.
46 On this side of the Jordan River, in the valley facing Bethpeor, in the territory of Sihon the Amorite king who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and the Israelites defeated after leaving Egypt:
47 They took over his land and Og’s land, the king of Bashan – lands of two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, where the sun rises.
48 From Aroer, by the river Arnon, to Mount Sion, known as Hermon.
49 The entire flat land east of the Jordan River up to the Dead Sea, at the foot of Mount Pisgah.