Deuteronomy 4

Moses Urges Obedience to God's Laws and Warns Against Idolatry

8 min read

1 Now therefore listen, O Israel, to the statutes and to the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers gives you.
2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD your God has destroyed them from among you.
4 But you that did join to the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day.
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do so in the land where you go to possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
7 For what nation is there so great, who has God so near to them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call on him for?
8 And what nation is there so great, that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
9 Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life: but teach them your sons, and your sons’ sons;
10 Specially the day that you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.
11 And you came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the middle of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.
12 And the LORD spoke to you out of the middle of the fire: you heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only you heard a voice.
13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them on two tables of stone. ¶
14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it.
15 Take you therefore good heed to yourselves; for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire:
16 Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17 The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flies in the air,
18 The likeness of any thing that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:
19 And lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, should be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD your God has divided to all nations under the whole heaven.
20 But the LORD has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as you are this day.
21 Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance:
22 But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but you shall go over, and possess that good land.
23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD your God has forbidden you.
24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. ¶
25 When you shall beget children, and children’s children, and you shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD your God, to provoke him to anger:
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land where you go over Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days on it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, where the LORD shall lead you.
28 And there you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But if from there you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things are come on you, even in the latter days, if you turn to the LORD your God, and shall be obedient to his voice;
31 (For the LORD your God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which 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 the one side of heaven to the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and live?
34 Or has God assayed to go and take him a nation from the middle of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 To you it was showed, that you might know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.
36 Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and on earth he showed you his great fire; and you heard his words out of the middle of the fire.
37 And because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought you out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;
38 To drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you are, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and on the earth beneath: there is none else.
40 You shall keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days on the earth, which the LORD your God gives you, for ever. ¶
41 Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sun rise;
42 That the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbor unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
43 Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites. ¶
44 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel:
45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses spoke to the children of Israel, after they came forth out of Egypt.
46 On this side Jordan, in the valley over against Bethpeor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelled at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel smote, after they were come forth out of Egypt:
47 And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, which were on this side Jordan toward the sun rise;
48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even to mount Sion, which is Hermon,
49 And all the plain on this side Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.
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