Deuteronomy 4:12-44
English Standard Version
Chapter 4
12Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.
15"Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire,
16beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved 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 any winged bird that flies in the air,
18the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.
19And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.
20But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.
21Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
22For I must die in this land; I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of that good land.
23Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you.
24For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25"When you father children and children 's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger,
26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you.
28And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice.
31For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.
32"For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of.
33Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?
34Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.
36Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
37And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,
38driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day,
39know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
40Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time."
41Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan,
42that the manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past; he may flee to one of these cities and save his life:
43Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
