Deuteronomy 4:17-36
English Standard Version
Chapter 4
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.
