Deuteronomy 4–12

Moses Tells Israel to Obey

4Now, Israel, listen to the laws and commands I will teach you. Obey them so that you will live and so that you will go over and take the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving to you. ²Don’t add to these commands, and don’t leave anything out, but obey the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

³You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how the Lord your God destroyed everyone among you who followed Baal in Peor. ⁴But all of you who continued following the Lord your God are still alive today.

⁵Look, I have taught you the laws and rules the Lord my God commanded me. Now you can obey the laws in the land you are entering, in the land you will take. ⁶Obey these laws carefully, in order to show the other nations that you have wisdom and understanding. When they hear about these laws, they will say, “This great nation of Israel is wise and understanding.” ⁷No other nation is as great as we are. Their gods do not come near them, but the Lord our God comes near when we pray to him. ⁸And no other nation has such good teachings and commands as those I am giving to you today.

⁹But be careful! Watch out and don’t forget the things you have seen. Don’t forget them as long as you live, but teach them to your children and grandchildren. ¹⁰Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Mount Sinai. He said to me, “Bring the people together so I can tell them what I have to say. Then they will respect me as long as they live in the land, and they will teach these things to their children.” ¹¹When you came and stood at the bottom of the mountain, it blazed with fire that reached to the sky, and black clouds made it very dark. ¹²The Lord spoke to you from the fire. You heard the sound of words, but you did not see him; there was only a voice. ¹³The Lord told you about his Agreement, the Ten Commandments. He told you to obey them, and he wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴Then the Lord commanded me to teach you the laws and rules that you must obey in the land you will take when you cross the Jordan River.

Laws About Idols

¹⁵Since the Lord spoke to you from the fire at Mount Sinai, but you did not see him, watch yourselves carefully! ¹⁶Don’t sin by making idols of any kind, and don’t make statues—of men or women, ¹⁷of animals on earth or birds that fly in the air, ¹⁸of anything that crawls on the ground, or of fish in the water below. ¹⁹When you look up at the sky, you see the sun, moon, and stars, and everything in the sky. But don’t bow down and worship them, because the Lord your God has made these things for all people everywhere. ²⁰But the Lord brought you out of Egypt, which tested you like a furnace for melting iron, and he made you his very own people, as you are now.

²¹The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan River to go into the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your own. ²²I will die here in this land and not cross the Jordan, but you will soon go across and take that good land. ²³Be careful. Don’t forget the Agreement of the Lord your God that he made with you, and don’t make any idols for yourselves, as the Lord your God has commanded you not to do. ²⁴The Lord your God is a jealous God, like a fire that burns things up.

²⁵Even after you have lived in the land a long time and have had children and grandchildren, don’t do evil things. Don’t make any kind of idol, and don’t do what the Lord your God says is evil, because that will make him angry. ²⁶If you do, I ask heaven and earth to speak against you this day that you will quickly be removed from this land that you are crossing the Jordan River to take. You will not live there long after that, but you will be completely destroyed. ²⁷The Lord will scatter you among the other nations. Only a few of you will be left alive, and those few will be in other nations where the Lord will send you. ²⁸There you will worship gods made by people, gods made of wood and stone, that cannot see, hear, eat, or smell. ²⁹But even there you can look for the Lord your God, and you will find him if you look for him with your whole being. ³⁰It will be hard when all these things happen to you. But after that you will come back to the Lord your God and obey him, ³¹because the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you. He will not forget the Agreement with your ancestors, which he swore to them.

The Lord Is Great

³²Nothing like this has ever happened before! Look at the past, long before you were even born. Go all the way back to when God made humans on the earth, and look from one end of heaven to the other. Nothing like this has ever been heard of! ³³No other people have ever heard God speak from a fire and have still lived. But you have. ³⁴No other god has ever taken for himself one nation out of another. But the Lord your God did this for you in Egypt, right before your own eyes. He did it with tests, signs, miracles, war, and great sights, by his great power and strength.

³⁵He showed you things so you would know that the Lord is God, and there is no other God besides him. ³⁶He spoke to you from heaven to teach you. He showed you his great fire on earth, and you heard him speak from the fire. ³⁷Because the Lord loved your ancestors, he chose you, their descendants, and he brought you out of Egypt himself by his great strength. ³⁸He forced nations out of their land ahead of you, nations that were bigger and stronger than you were. The Lord did this so he could bring you into their land and give it to you as your own, and this land is yours today.

³⁹Know and believe today that the Lord is God. He is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other god! ⁴⁰Obey his laws and commands that I am giving you today so that things will go well for you and your children. Then you will live a long time in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you forever.

Cities of Safety

⁴¹Moses chose three cities east of the Jordan River, ⁴²where a person who accidentally killed someone could go. If the person was not killed because of hatred, the murderer’s life could be saved by running to one of these cities. ⁴³These were the cities: Bezer in the desert high plain was for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead was for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan was for the Manassites.

The Laws Moses Gave

⁴⁴These are the teachings Moses gave to the people of Israel. ⁴⁵They are the rules, commands, and laws he gave them when they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁶They were in the valley near Beth Peor, east of the Jordan River, in the land of Sihon. Sihon king of the Amorites ruled in Heshbon and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷The Israelites took his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River. ⁴⁸This land went from Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon Ravine, to Mount Hermon. ⁴⁹It included all the Jordan Valley east of the Jordan River, and it went as far as the Dead Sea below Mount Pisgah.

The Ten Commandments

5Moses called all the people of Israel together and said: Listen, Israel, to the commands and laws I am giving you today. Learn them and obey them carefully. ²The Lord our God made an Agreement with us at Mount Sinai. ³He did not make this Agreement with our ancestors, but he made it with us, with all of us who are alive here today. ⁴The Lord spoke to you face to face from the fire on the mountain. ⁵(At that time I stood between you and the Lord in order to tell you what the Lord said; you were afraid of the fire, so you would not go up on the mountain.) The Lord said:

⁶“I am the Lord your God; I brought you out of the land of Egypt where you were slaves.

⁷“You must not have any other gods except me.

⁸“You must not make for yourselves any idols or anything to worship that looks like something in the sky above or on the earth below or in the water below the land. ⁹You must not worship or serve any idol, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. If people sin against me and hate me, I will punish their children, even their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. ¹⁰But I will be very kind for a thousand lifetimes to those who love me and obey my commands.

¹¹“You must not use the name of the Lord your God thoughtlessly, because the Lord will punish anyone who uses his name in this way.

¹²“Keep the Sabbath as a holy day, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹³You may work and get everything done during six days each week, ¹⁴but the seventh day is a day of rest to honor the Lord your God. On that day no one may do any work: not you, your son or daughter, your male or female slaves, your ox, your donkey, or any of your animals, or the foreigners living in your cities. That way your servants may rest as you do. ¹⁵Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there by his great power and strength. So the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day.

¹⁶“Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you. Then you will live a long time, and things will go well for you in the land that the Lord your God is going to give you.

¹⁷“You must not murder anyone.

¹⁸“You must not be guilty of adultery.

¹⁹“You must not steal.

²⁰“You must not tell lies about your neighbor.

²¹“You must not want to take your neighbor’s wife. You must not want to take your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female slaves, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

²²The Lord spoke these commands to all of you on the mountain in a loud voice out of the fire, the cloud, and the deep darkness; he did not say anything else. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets, and he gave them to me.

²³When you heard the voice from the darkness, as the mountain was blazing with fire, all the leaders of your tribes and your elders came to me. ²⁴And you said, “The Lord our God has shown us his…