Deuteronomy 4

Now listen, Israel, listen carefully to the rules and regulations that I am teaching you to follow so that you may live and enter and take possession of the land that God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, is giving to you. Don’t add a word to what I command you, and don’t remove a word from it. Keep the commands of God, your God, that I am commanding you.

Now, Israel, listen to the rules and laws I’m going to teach you. Obey them and you will live. You will go in and take over the land. The Lord was the God of your people of long ago. He’s giving you the land.

Don’t add to what I’m commanding you. Don’t subtract from it either. Instead, obey the commands of the Lord your God that I’m giving you.

You saw with your own eyes what God did at Baal Peor, how God destroyed from among you every man who joined in the Baal Peor orgies. But you, the ones who held tight to God, your God, are alive and well, every one of you, today.

Your own eyes saw what the Lord your God did at Baal Peor. He destroyed every one of your people who worshiped the Baal that was worshiped at Peor.

But all of you who remained true to the Lord your God are still alive today.

Pay attention: I’m teaching you the rules and regulations that God commanded me, so that you may live by them in the land you are entering to take up ownership. Keep them. Practice them. You’ll become wise and understanding. When people hear and see what’s going on, they’ll say, “What a great nation! So wise, so understanding! We’ve never seen anything like it.”

I have taught you rules and laws, just as the Lord my God commanded me. Obey them in the land you are entering to take as your very own.

Be careful to keep them. That will show the nations how wise and understanding you are. They will hear about all these rules. They’ll say, “That great nation certainly has wise and understanding people.”

Yes. What other great nation has gods that are intimate with them the way God, our God, is with us, always ready to listen to us? And what other great nation has rules and regulations as good and fair as this Revelation that I’m setting before you today?

The Lord our God is near us every time we pray to him. What other nation is great enough to have its gods that close to them?

I’m giving you the laws of the Lord today. What other nation is great enough to have rules and laws as fair as these?

Just make sure you stay alert. Keep close watch over yourselves. Don’t forget anything of what you’ve seen. Don’t let your heart wander off. Stay vigilant as long as you live. Teach what you’ve seen and heard to your children and grandchildren.

Don’t be careless. Instead, be very careful. Don’t forget the things your eyes have seen. As long as you live, don’t let them slip from your mind. Teach them to your children and their children after them.

That day when you stood before God, your God, at Horeb, God said to me, “Assemble the people in my presence to listen to my words so that they will learn to fear me in holy fear for as long as they live on the land, and then they will teach these same words to their children.”

Remember the day you stood at Mount Horeb. The Lord your God was there. He said to me, “Bring the people to me to hear my words. I want them to learn to have respect for me as long as they live in the land. I want them to teach my words to their children.”

You gathered. You stood in the shadow of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with fire, blazing high into the very heart of Heaven. You stood in deep darkness and thick clouds. God spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but you saw nothing—no form, only a voice. He announced his covenant, the Ten Words, by which he commanded you to live. Then he wrote them down on two slabs of stone.

You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain. It blazed with fire that reached as high as the very heavens. There were black clouds and deep darkness.

Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of his words. But you didn’t see any shape or form. You only heard a voice.

He announced his covenant to you. That covenant is the Ten Commandments. He commanded you to obey them. Then he wrote them down on two stone tablets.

And God commanded me at that time to teach you the rules and regulations that you are to live by in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.

At that time the Lord directed me to teach you his rules and laws. You must obey them in the land you are crossing the Jordan River to take as your own.

Don’t Make or Worship Statues of Gods

You saw no form on the day God spoke to you at Horeb from out of the fire. Remember that. Carefully guard yourselves so that you don’t turn corrupt and make a form, carving a figure that looks male or female, or looks like a prowling animal or a flying bird or a slithering snake or a fish in a stream. And also carefully guard yourselves so that you don’t look up into the skies and see the sun and moon and stars, all the constellations of the skies, and be seduced into worshiping and serving them. God set them out for everybody’s benefit, everywhere. But you—God took you right out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to become the people of his inheritance—and that’s what you are this very day.

The Lord spoke to you at Mount Horeb out of the fire. But you didn’t see any shape or form that day. So be very careful.

Make sure you don’t commit a horrible sin. Don’t make for yourselves a statue of a god. Don’t make a god that looks like a man or woman or anything else.

Don’t make one that looks like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the sky.

Don’t make a statue that looks like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish that swims in the water.

When you look up at the heavens, you will see the sun and moon. And you will see huge numbers of stars. Don’t let anyone tempt you to bow down to the sun, moon or stars. Don’t worship things the Lord your God has provided for all the nations on earth.

Egypt was like a furnace that melts iron down and makes it pure. But the Lord took you and brought you out of Egypt. He wanted you to be his very own people. And that’s exactly what you are.

But God was angry with me because of you and the things you said. He swore that I’d never cross the Jordan, never get to enter the good land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance. This means that I am going to die here. I’m not crossing the Jordan. But you will cross; you’ll possess the good land.

The Lord was angry with me because of what you did. He promised that he would never let me go across the Jordan River. He promised that I would never enter that good land. It’s the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own.

I’ll die here in this land. I won’t go across the Jordan. But you are about to cross over it. You will take that good land as your own.

So stay alert. Don’t for a minute forget the covenant which God, your God, made with you. And don’t take up with any carved images, no forms of any kind—God, your God, issued clear commands on that. God, your God, is not to be trifled with—he’s a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Be careful. Don’t forget the covenant the Lord your God made with you. Don’t make for yourselves a statue of any god at all. He has told you not to. So don’t do it.

The Lord your God is like a fire that burns everything up. He wants you to worship only him.

When the time comes that you have children and grandchildren, put on years, and start taking things for granted, if you then become corrupt and make any carved images, no matter what their form, by doing what is sheer evil in God’s eyes and provoking his anger—I can tell you right now, with Heaven and Earth as witnesses, that it will be all over for you. You’ll be kicked off the land that you’re about to cross over the Jordan to possess. Believe me, you’ll have a very short stay there. You’ll be ruined, completely ruined. God will scatter you far and wide; a few of you will survive here and there in the nations where God will drive you. There you can worship your homemade gods to your hearts’ content, your wonderful gods of wood and stone that can’t see or hear or eat or smell.

So don’t make a statue of a god. Don’t commit that horrible sin. Don’t do it even after you have had children and grandchildren. Don’t do it even after you have lived in the land a long time. If you do, that will be an evil thing in the sight of the Lord your God. You will make him angry.

Today I’m calling out to the heavens and the earth to be witnesses against you. Suppose you do these things. Then you will quickly die in the land you are going across the Jordan River to take over. You won’t live there very long. You will certainly be destroyed.

The Lord will drive you out of your land. He will scatter you among the nations. Only a few of you will remain alive there.

There you will worship gods that men have made out of wood and stone. Those gods can’t see, hear, eat or smell.

But even there, if you seek God, your God, you’ll be able to find him if you’re serious, looking for him with your whole heart and soul. When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to God, your God, and listen obediently to what he says. God, your God, is above all a compassionate God. In the end he will not abandon you, he won’t bring you to ruin, he won’t forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.

Perhaps while you are there, you will seek the Lord your God. You will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.

All the things I’ve told you about might happen to you. And you will be in trouble. But later you will return to the Lord your God. You will obey him.

The Lord your God is tender and loving. He won’t leave you or destroy you. He won’t forget the covenant he made with your people of long ago. He gave his word when he made it.

The Lord Is God

Ask questions. Find out what has been going on all these years before you were born. From the day God created man and woman on this Earth, and from the horizon in the east to the horizon in the west—as far back as you can imagine and as far away as you can imagine—has as great a thing as this ever happened? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Has a people ever heard, as you did, a god speaking out of the middle of the fire and lived to tell the story?

Ask now about the days of long ago. Find out what happened long before your time. Ask about what has happened since the time God created human beings on the earth. Ask from one end of the world to the other. Has anything as great as this ever happened? Has anything like it ever been heard of?

You heard the voice of God speaking out of fire. And you lived! Has that happened to any other people?

Or has a god ever tried to select for himself a nation from within a nation using trials, miracles, and war, putting his strong hand in, reaching his long arm out, a spectacle awesome and staggering, the way God, your God, did it for you in Egypt while you stood right there and watched?

Has any god ever tried to take one nation out of another to be his own? Has any god done it by testing his people? Has any god done it with signs and amazing deeds or with war? Has any god reached out his mighty hand and powerful arm? Or has any god shown his people his great and wonderful acts? The Lord your God did all those things for you in Egypt. With your very own eyes you saw him do them.

You were shown all this so that you would know that God is, well, God. He’s the only God there is. He’s it. He made it possible for you to hear his voice out of Heaven to discipline you. Down on Earth, he showed you the big fire and again you heard his words, this time out of the fire. He loved your ancestors and chose to work with their children. He personally and powerfully brought you out of Egypt in order to displace bigger and stronger and older nations with you, bringing you out and turning their land over to you as an inheritance. And now it’s happening. This very day.

The Lord showed you those things so that you might know he is God. There is no other God except him.

From heaven he made you hear his voice. He wanted to teach you. On earth he showed you his great fire. You heard his words coming out of the fire.

He loved your people of long ago. He chose their children after them. So he brought you out of Egypt. He used his great strength to do it.

He drove out nations to make room for you. They were greater and stronger than you are. He will bring you into their land. He wants to give it to you as your very own. The whole land is as good as yours right now.

Know this well, then. Take it to heart right now: God is in Heaven above; God is on Earth below. He’s the only God there is. Obediently live by his rules and commands which I’m giving you today so that you’ll live well and your children after you—oh, you’ll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you.

The Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. Today you must agree with that and take it to heart. There is no other God.

I’m giving you his rules and commands today. Obey them. Then things will go well with you and your children after you. You will live a long time in the land. The Lord your God is giving you the land for all time to come.

Cities to Run to for Safety

Then Moses set aside three towns in the country on the east side of the Jordan to which someone who had unintentionally killed a person could flee and find refuge. If the murder was unintentional and there was no history of bad blood, the murderer could flee to one of these cities and save his life:

Then Moses set apart three cities east of the Jordan River.

Suppose someone killed a person they didn’t hate and without meaning to do it. That person could run to one of those cities and stay alive.

Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

Here are the names of the cities. Bezer was for the people of Reuben. It was in the high plains in the desert. Ramoth was for the people of Gad. It was in Gilead. Golan was for the people of Manasseh. It was in Bashan.

Moses Gives the Law to Israel

This is the Revelation that Moses presented to the People of Israel. These are the testimonies, the rules and regulations Moses spoke to the People of Israel after their exodus from Egypt and arrival on the east side of the Jordan in the valley near Beth Peor. It was the country of Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon. Moses and the People of Israel fought and beat him after they left Egypt and took his land. They also took the land of Og king of Bashan. The two Amorite kings held the country on the east of the Jordan from Aroer on the bank of the Brook Arnon as far north as Mount Siyon, that is, Mount Hermon, all the Arabah plain east of the Jordan, and as far south as the Sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea) beneath the slopes of Mount Pisgah.

Here is the law Moses gave the Israelites.

Here are its terms, rules and laws. Moses gave them to the people when they came out of Egypt.

They were now east of the Jordan River in the valley near Beth Peor. They were in the land of Sihon, the king of the Amorites. He ruled in Heshbon. But Moses and the Israelites won the battle over him after we came out of Egypt.

They captured his land and made it their own. They also took the land of Og, the king of Bashan. Sihon and Og were the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River.

Their land reached from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon River valley to Mount Hermon.

It included the whole Arabah Valley east of the Jordan. It included land all the way to the Dead Sea below the slopes of Pisgah.