“And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I
am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take
possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is
giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor
take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your
God that I command you. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at
Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all the
men who followed the Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the
LORD your God are all alive today. See, I have taught you statutes
and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them
in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep
them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your
understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all
these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and
understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a
god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call
upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and
rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget
the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your
heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children
and your children's children—how on the day that you stood before
the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people
to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to
fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may
teach their children so.’ And you came near and stood at the foot
of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart
of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the LORD
spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of
words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to
you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the
Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And
the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules,
that you might do them in the land that you are going over to
possess.
“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form
on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of
the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image
for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or
female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the
likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of
anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that
is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you raise your
eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the
stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to
them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to
all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the LORD has taken you
and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a
people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. Furthermore,
the LORD was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I
should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good
land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance. For I
must die in this land; I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall
go over and take possession of that good land. Take care, lest you
forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you,
and make a carved image, the form of anything that the LORD your
God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a
jealous God.
“When you father children and children's children, and have grown
old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in
the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the
LORD your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and
earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly
perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.
You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And
the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left
few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. And
there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human
hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from
there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you
search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When
you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the
latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his
voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave
you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he
swore to them.
“For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you,
since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one
end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has
ever happened or was ever heard of. Did any people ever hear the
voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have
heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take
a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials,
by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the
LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was
shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other
besides him. Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might
discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you
heard his words out of the midst of the fire. And because he loved
your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you
out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out
before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in,
to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know
therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in
heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. Therefore
you shall keep 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 that the
LORD your God is giving you for all time.”
Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan,
that the manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor
unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past; he
may flee to one of these cities and save his life: Bezer in the
wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead
for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel. These
are the testimonies, the statutes, and the rules, which Moses spoke
to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt, beyond the
Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon the
king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the
people of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. And they
took possession of his land and the land of Og, the king of Bashan,
the two kings of the Amorites, who lived to the east beyond the
Jordan; from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the
Arnon, as far as Mount Sirion (that is, Hermon), together with all
the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the
Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.
