Deuteronomy 4

Now, you Israelite people, obey all the rules and regulations that I will teach you. If you do that, you will remain alive. You will be able to enter and occupy the land that God, the God whom your ancestors worshiped, is giving to you.

Do not change the words of my commands to you. Obey all the commands of God our God that I am giving to you. \*

You have seen what God did at Baal Peor, for example, when he destroyed all the people who worshiped {the god} Baal there.

However, all of you who faithfully continued to worship God our God are still alive today. \*

Never forget that I have taught you all the rules and regulations, just as God our God told me to do. He wants you to obey them {when you are living} in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.

Obey them faithfully because, if you do that, you will show the people of other nations that you are very wise. When they hear about all these rules, they will say, ‘The people of this great nation of Israel are certainly very wise!’ \*

Even if other nations are great, there is none of them that has a god who cares for them as God our God cares for us!

And there is no other nation, even if it is a great nation, which has laws that are as just as the laws that I am speaking to you today. \*

But be very careful! Do not forget what you have seen God do. Remember those things as long as you are alive. Tell them to your children and your grandchildren.

Tell them about the day that your parents stood in the presence of God our God at Mount Horeb, when he said to me, ‘Gather the people together in order that they can hear what I say. I want them to learn to respect me and honor me as long as they are alive. I want them to teach their children to do the same.’ \*

Tell your children that your parents came near to the foot of the mountain while the mountain burned with a fire that went up to the sky, and God covered the mountain with darkness, clouds, and smoke.

Then God spoke to your parents out of the middle of the fire. Your parents only heard him speak, but they did not see him. \*

And he declared to them his covenant that he wants you also to obey. He gave them the Ten Commandments. He wrote those on two stone tablets.

God told me to teach all the rules and regulations to you in order that you would obey them. He wants you to obey them in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. \*

On the day that God spoke to your parents from the fire at Mount Horeb, they did not see him. So be very careful!

Do not sin by making for yourselves any carved figure! Do not make anything that resembles the likeness of anything: man, woman,

any animal, any bird,

any reptile, or any fish. \*

Do not look up toward the sky and desire to worship anything that you see there, the sun or the moon or the stars. God our God has given those to {help} all people everywhere.

God has brought your families out of Egypt, where they were suffering as though they were in a blazing furnace. That is so that they would be people who belong to him, which is what you are today. \*

But God was angry with me because of what your parents did. He declared that I would never enter the land that he is giving to you.

He swore that I would die here in this land and never cross the Jordan River. But you will go across it, and you will occupy that land. \*

Be sure that you do not forget the covenant that God our God made with you, and do not make a carved figure in the likeness of anything about which he has forbidden you.

This is because God your God wants everyone to worship him alone. He will destroy anyone who worships idols. \*

After you have been in the land of Canaan for a long time and you have children and grandchildren, do not sin by making a carved figure that represents anything. God says that is evil, and if you do that, you will cause him to become angry.

Today I am requesting everyone who is in heaven and earth to watch what you are doing. But {if you disobey what I am telling you}, you will soon all die in the land that you will be crossing the Jordan River to occupy. You will not live very long there, because God will completely get rid of many of you. \*

God will force the rest of you to go and live among the people of many other nations. Only a few of you will survive there.

When you are in those nations, you will worship gods that humans have made from wood and stone. {They will be gods} that cannot see, hear, eat, or smell {anything}. \*

But while you are there, you will try to know God your God. If you try with all that you are to know him, he will answer you. \*

In the future, when people mistreat you {there} and all those {bad} things happen to you, you will again worship only God and obey him.

God is a God who acts mercifully. {If you obey him}, he will not abandon you, cause you to die, or forget the agreement that he solemnly made with your ancestors. \*

Now please think about the past, about the time before you were alive, about all the time since God first created people here on the earth. You could search everywhere. Certainly, nothing has ever happened that is as great {as what God did for the Israelite people}.

Certainly no group has ever remained alive after they heard their God speak to them from the middle of a fire as you yourselves have heard. \*

Certainly God has never before tried to take a huge group of people from one nation {to another location} as he did for us when he brought us out of Egypt. We saw God our God use his power when he performed miracles, sent plagues, terrified people, and fought the Egyptians for us. \*

God showed all these things especially to you in order that you would know that only he is truly God and that there is no other God.

He allowed your parents to hear him speak from heaven in order that he could discipline them. Here on the earth, he allowed them to see his great fire. He spoke to them from the middle of the fire. \*

Because he loved our ancestors, he chose you Israelites, who are their descendants. By his great power, he brought us out of Egypt.

{As they traveled}, he expelled the people of nations that were greater and more powerful than we were. This is so that we could capture and live in their land, as we are about to do today. \*

So today you should think about the fact that God is God, that {he rules} in heaven and also on the earth, and that there is no other god.

Obey all the rules and regulations that I am giving to you today. This is so that things will go well for you and your descendants and so that you will live a long time in the land that God our God is giving to you, so {it will belong to you} forever.” \*

Then Moses chose three cities that are on the east side of the Jordan River.

If someone accidentally killed another person, a person who had not been his enemy previously, he could escape to one of those cities. He would be safe there {because the people there would protect him}.

For the tribe of Reuben, Moses chose the city of Bezer in the wilderness. For the tribe of Gad, he chose the city of Ramoth in the region of Gilead. For the tribe of Manasseh, he chose the city of Golan in the region of Bashan. \*

Moses gave God’s instructions to the Israelite people.

They included all the instructions, rules, and regulations that Moses told the Israelite people after they had come out of Egypt,

when they were in the valley east of the Jordan River. They were across from the town of Beth Peor, in the land Sihon, the king of the Amorite people, who lived in the city of Heshbon, had {previously} ruled. Moses and the other Israelites had defeated his army when they came out of Egypt. \*

They captured Sihon’s land and the land that Og, the king of the region of Bashan, had ruled. Those were the two kings who ruled the Amorite people in the area east of the Jordan River.

Their land extended from the city of Aroer in the south along the edge of the valley of Arnon, as far north as Mount Sion, which people also call Mount Hermon.

It also included all the area in the plain east of the Jordan River, extending to the Sea of the Arabah and east to the slopes of Mount Pisgah. \*