Deuteronomy 4:16-49 ▼

16 lest you do corruptly, and have made for yourselves a carved image, a likeness of any figure: a form of male or female,

17 a form of any beast which [is] in the earth, a form of any winged bird which flies in the heavens,

18 a form of any creeping thing on the ground, a form of any fish which [is] in the waters below the earth.

19 And lest you lift up your eyes to the heavens, and have seen the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of the heavens, and have been drawn away, and have bowed yourself to them and served them, which your God YHWH has apportioned to all the peoples under all the heavens.

20 And YHWH has taken you, and He is bringing you out from the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be to Him for a people, an inheritance, as [at] this day.

21 And YHWH has showed Himself angry with me because of your words, and swears to my not passing over the Jordan, and to my not going into the good land which your God YHWH is giving to you [for] an inheritance;

22 for I am dying in this land; I am not passing over the Jordan, but you are passing over and have possessed this good land.

23 Take heed to yourselves lest you forget the covenant of your God YHWH which He has made with you, and have made a carved image for yourselves, a likeness of anything [concerning] which your God YHWH has charged you;

24 for your God YHWH is a consuming fire—a zealous God.

25 When you beget sons and sons’ sons, and you have become old in the land, and have done corruptly, and have made a carved image, a likeness of anything, and have done evil in the eyes of YHWH to provoke Him to anger,

26 I have caused the heavens and the earth to testify against you this day, that you perish utterly quickly from off the land to where you are passing over the Jordan to possess it; you do not prolong days on it, but are utterly destroyed;

27 and YHWH has scattered you among the peoples, and you have been left few in number among the nations to where YHWH leads you,

28 and you have served gods there, work of man’s hands, wood and stone, which do not see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

29 And you have sought your God YHWH from there, and have found [Him] when you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

30 In the distress of yours, when all these things have found you in the latter end of the days, and you have turned back to your God YHWH and have listened to His voice—

31 for your God YHWH [is] a merciful God—He does not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He has sworn to them.

32 For ask now of the former days which have been before you, from the day that God created man on the earth, and from the [one] end of the heavens even to the [other] end of the heavens, whether there has been as this great thing, or [if anything] has been heard like it.

33 Has a people heard the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, you—and live?

34 Or has God tried to go in to take a nation for Himself from the midst of a nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a strong hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that your God YHWH has done to you in Egypt before your eyes?

35 You—you have been shown [it], to know that He, YHWH, [is] God; there is none else besides Him.

36 He has caused you to hear His voice from the heavens, to instruct you; and on earth He has showed you His great fire, and you have heard His words out of the midst of the fire.

37 And because that He has loved your fathers, He also fixes on their seed after them, and brings you out in His presence, by His great power, from Egypt,

38 to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you from your presence, to bring you in to give their land to you [for] an inheritance, as [at] this day.

39 And you have known today, and have turned [it] back to your heart, that He, YHWH, [is] God in the heavens above and on the earth below—there is none else;

40 and you have kept His statutes and His commands which I am commanding you today, so that it is well for you, and for your sons after you, and so that you prolong days on the ground which your God YHWH is giving to you—all the days.”

41 Then Moses separates three cities beyond the Jordan, toward the sun-rising,

42 for the fleeing there of the manslayer who slays his neighbor unknowingly, and he is not hating him before, and he has fled to one of these cities and he has lived:

43 Bezer in the wilderness, in the land of the plain, for the Reubenite; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadite; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassite.

44 And this [is] the law which Moses has set before the sons of Israel;

45 these [are] the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses has spoken to the sons of Israel in their coming out of Egypt,

46 beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-Peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorite, who is dwelling in Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel have struck in their coming out of Egypt;

47 and they possess his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorite who [are] beyond the Jordan, [toward] the sun-rising,

48 from Aroer, which [is] by the edge of the Brook of Arnon, even to Mount Zion, which [is] Hermon—

49 and all the plain beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the Sea of the Plain, below the Springs of Pisgah.