Deuteronomy 4:1-28 ▼

1 |Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and the ordinances that I'm teaching you to observe so you may live and go in to take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is about to give you.

2 Do not add or subtract a thing to what I'm commanding you. Observe the commands of the LORD your God.

3 You saw with your own eyes what he did in Baal Peor. The LORD your God exterminated from among you every man who followed Baal of Peor.

4 But all of you who are clinging to the LORD your God are alive today.

5 See! I taught you the statutes and the ordinances, just as the LORD God commanded. Therefore, observe them when you enter the land you are about to possess.

6 Observe them carefully, because this will show your wisdom and discernment in the eyes of people who'll listen to all these decrees. Then they'll say: 'Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people.'

7 For what great nation has a god so near like the LORD our God whenever we call on him?

8 And what great nation has all the decrees and righteous ordinances like all this teaching that I'm giving you today?

9 Only guard yourselves carefully so you won't forget the things that you saw and let them slip from your mind for the rest of your life. Tell them to your children and to your grandchildren.

10 The day you stood in the presence of the LORD your God in Horeb, the LORD told me, 'Gather the people before me so they may hear my words, learn to revere me the whole time that they live in the land, and teach them to their children.'|

11 |When you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain—a mountain that was blazing with fire at its core while the sky was covered with thick, dark clouds—

12 the LORD your God spoke from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but you saw no form; there was only a voice.

13 He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to observe—the Ten Commandments that he wrote on two stone tablets.

14 The LORD commanded me at that time to teach you to observe the statutes and ordinances in the land after you cross over to take possession of it.

15 |Therefore, for your own sake, be very careful, since you did not see any form on the day that the LORD your God spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire.

16 Be careful! Otherwise, you will be destroyed when you make carved images for yourself—all sorts of images in the form of man, woman,

17 any animal on earth, any winged bird that flies in the sky,

18 any creeping thing on the ground, or any fish in the sea.

19 Do not gaze toward the heavens and observe the sun, the moon, the stars—the entire array of the sky—with the intent to worship and serve what the LORD your God gave every nation.

20 For the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace—out of Egypt—to be the people of his inheritance, as you are today.

21 |But the LORD was angry with me because of you. So he swore that I'll never cross the Jordan River to enter the good land that the LORD your God is about to give you as an inheritance.

22 I'm going to die in this land and I won't cross the Jordan River, but you're about to cross over to possess that good land.

23 Be careful! Otherwise, you will forget the covenant of the LORD your God, who established that covenant with you. Don't make carved images of any likeness in violation of everything that you were commanded by the LORD your God.

24 Indeed, the LORD your God is a consuming fire. He is a jealous God.|

25 |After you've borne children and grandchildren, have been there for a long time in the land, have become so corrupted that you make images of any form, and have done evil in the eyes of the LORD your God, you will provoke him to anger.

26 Heaven and earth will testify against what has occurred today: you'll surely and swiftly be destroyed from the land that you are about to possess by crossing the Jordan River. You won't live long in it, because you'll certainly be exterminated.

27 Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and you'll be fewer in number in the nations where the LORD your God will drive you.

28 There you'll serve gods made by human hands, serving trees and stones that cannot see, hear, eat, nor smell.