Deuteronomy 4–12

Chapter 4

Israel Urged to Obey God’s Law

¹“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which ^aI am teaching you to perform, so that ^byou may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

²“^aYou shall not add to the word which ^bI am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.

³“^aYour 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 ¹them 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 ^ajust 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, ^afor 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 ^awhat great nation is there that has a god ^bso near to it as is the Lord our God ^cwhenever we call on Him?

⁸“Or what great nation is there that has ^astatutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

⁹“Only ^agive 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 ^ball the days of your life; but ^cmake 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 ^aso they may learn to ¹fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may ^bteach their children.’

¹¹“You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, ^aand 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, ^athe Ten ¹Commandments; and ^bHe 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 ^awatch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any ^bform on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,

¹⁶so that you do not ^aact corruptly and ^bmake a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

¹⁷the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of ^aany winged bird that flies in the sky,

¹⁸the 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, ^aall the host of heaven, ^band 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 ^athe iron furnace, from Egypt, to ^bbe a people for His own possession, as today.

²¹“^aNow 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 ^aI will die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this ^bgood land.

²³“So watch yourselves, ^athat you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and ^bmake 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 ^aconsuming fire, a ^bjealous God.

²⁵“When you ¹become the father of children and children’s children and have remained long in the land, and ^aact corruptly, and ^bmake an ²idol in the form of anything, and ^cdo that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God so as to provoke Him to anger,

²⁶I ^acall heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will ^bsurely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not ¹live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed.

²⁷“The Lord will ^ascatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you.

²⁸“^aThere you will serve gods, the work of man’s hands, ^bwood and stone, ^cwhich neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

²⁹“^aBut from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him ^bwith all your heart and all your soul.

³⁰“When you ^aare in distress and all these things have come upon you, ^bin the latter days ^cyou will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice.

³¹“For the Lord your God is a ^acompassionate God; ^bHe will not fail you nor ^cdestroy you nor ^dforget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

³²“Indeed, ^aask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the ^bday that God created ¹man on the earth, and inquire ^cfrom one end of the heavens to the other. ^dHas anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it?

³³“^aHas any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived?

³⁴“^aOr has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation ^bby trials, by signs and wonders and by war and ^cby a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, ¹as 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; ^athere is no other besides Him.

³⁶“^aOut of the heavens He let you hear His voice ^bto discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire.

³⁷“^1aBecause He loved your fathers, therefore He chose ²their descendants after them. And He ^3bpersonally brought you from Egypt by His great power,

³⁸driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and ^ato give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today.

³⁹“Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that ^athe Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.

⁴⁰“^aSo you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am ¹giving you today, that ^bit may go well with you and with your children after you, and ^cthat you may ²live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

^41aThen Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan to the ¹east,

⁴²that 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:

^43aBezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

⁴⁴Now this is the law which Moses set before the sons of Israel;

⁴⁵these are the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, when they came out from Egypt,

⁴⁶across the Jordan, in the valley ^aopposite Beth-peor, in the land of ^bSihon king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel ¹defeated when they came out from Egypt.

⁴⁷They took possession of his land and the land of ^aOg king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were across the Jordan to the ¹east,

⁴⁸from ^aAroer, which is on the edge of the ¹valley of Arnon, even as far as ^bMount Sion (that is, Hermon),

⁴⁹with all the Arabah across the Jordan to the east, even as far as the sea of the Arabah, ¹at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah.

Chapter 5

The Ten Commandments Repeated

¹Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them:

“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your ¹hearing, that you may learn them and observe ²them carefully.

²“The Lord our God made ^aa covenant with us at Horeb.

³“^aThe Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of ¹us alive here today.

⁴“The Lord spoke to you ^aface to face at the mountain ^bfrom the midst of the fire,

⁵while ^aI was standing between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; ^bfor you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. ¹He said,

⁶‘^aI am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of ¹slavery.

⁷‘^aYou shall have no other gods ¹before Me.

⁸‘^aYou shall not make for yourself ¹an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above ²or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

⁹‘You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, ^avisiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

¹⁰but ^ashowing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

¹¹‘^aYou shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not ¹leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

¹²‘^aObserve the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.

¹³‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

¹⁴but ^athe seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who ¹stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

¹⁵‘^aYou shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.

¹⁶‘^aHonor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, ^bthat your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the…