1 "Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and rules I am teaching you to carry out, so that you may live and go in and take over the land the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
2 Do not add anything to what I command you, and do not take anything away from it, so that you keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I am giving you.
3 You saw with your own eyes what the LORD did at Baal-peor: the LORD your God wiped out from among you everyone who went after the Baal of Peor.
4 But all of you who clung to the LORD your God are alive today.
5 Look, I have taught you statutes and rules just as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you will live by them in the land you are about to enter and possess.
6 Keep them and carry them out, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, 'This great nation is indeed a wise and discerning people!'
7 What great nation has a god as near to it as the LORD our God is to us whenever we call on him?
8 And what great nation has statutes and rules as just as this whole law I am setting before you today?
9 "Only be on your guard and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not forget what your eyes have seen or let it slip from your heart as long as you live. Make them known to your children and grandchildren,
10 telling of the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when the LORD said to me, 'Gather the people to me so I can let them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and may teach their children.'
11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire up into the very heart of the sky, amid darkness, cloud, and deep gloom.
12 Then the LORD spoke to you from the middle of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but you saw no form; there was only a voice.
13 He proclaimed to you his covenant, the Ten Words, which he commanded you to keep, and he wrote them on two stone tablets.
14 At that time the LORD commanded me to teach you statutes and rules for you to carry out in the land you are crossing over to possess.
15 "So be very careful for your own lives. Since you saw no form of any kind on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire,
16 do not corrupt yourselves by making for yourselves a carved image in the shape of any figure, whether made like a man or a woman,
17 or like any animal on the earth, or any winged bird that flies in the sky,
18 or any creature that crawls on the ground, or any fish in the waters beneath the earth.
19 And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, the whole host of heaven, do not be led astray into bowing down to them and serving them. The LORD your God has allotted them to all the peoples under the whole heaven.
20 But you are the ones the LORD has taken and brought out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you are today.
21 "The LORD was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan or enter the good land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
22 I am going to die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you are going to cross over and take possession of that good land.
23 Watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the covenant the LORD your God made with you and make yourselves a carved image in the shape of anything the LORD your God has forbidden.
24 For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25 "After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, if you then corrupt yourselves and make a carved image in the shape of anything, doing evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger,
26 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will quickly perish from the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long; you will be completely destroyed.
27 The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
28 There you will serve gods made by human hands, gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, in the last days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to his voice.
31 For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant he swore to your fathers.
32 "Just ask about the former days, the days before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other: has anything as great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?
33 Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you have, and lived?
34 Or has any god ever tried to go and take a nation for himself out of another nation, by trials, signs, and wonders, by war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
35 You were shown these things so that you would know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.
36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to instruct you, and on earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from the middle of the fire.
37 Because he loved your fathers, he chose their descendants after them, and he himself brought you out of Egypt by his great power,
38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you, and to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as it is today.
39 So know today, and take it to heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.
40 Keep his statutes and commandments that I am giving you today, so that it will go well with you and your children after you, and so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you for all time."
41 Then Moses set aside three cities on the other side of the Jordan, toward the sunrise,
42 so that anyone who killed his neighbor by accident, without having hated him before, could flee there. He could flee to one of these cities and save his life.
43 They were Bezer in the wilderness, on the plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44 This is the law Moses set before the children of Israel.
45 These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the rules Moses gave the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt,
46 on the other side of the Jordan, in the valley facing Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. Moses and the children of Israel defeated him after they came out of Egypt,
47 and they took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites on the other side of the Jordan, toward the sunrise,
48 from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Sion, that is, Hermon,
49 together with all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.