1And now, Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live and go in to take possession of the land the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.
2Do not add to what I am commanding you, and do not subtract from it. Keep the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you.
3You saw with your own eyes what the LORD did at Baal-peor — the LORD your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed Baal of Peor.
4But all of you who held fast to the LORD your God are still alive today.
5Look, I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to possess.
6Keep them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the nations. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, 'This great nation is certainly a wise and understanding people.'
7What other great nation has gods that are as near to them as the LORD our God is to us whenever we call to him?
8And what great nation has righteous statutes and ordinances like this entire law I am setting before you today?
9Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you don't forget the things your eyes have seen, and so they don't slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and their children after them.
10Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, 'Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land, and may teach their children to do the same.'
11You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and it blazed with fire that reached to the very sky, with dark clouds and deep darkness.
12The LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form — only a voice.
13He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to follow — the Ten Commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets.
14At that time the LORD commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to follow in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.
15So be very careful — since you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire —
16do not corrupt yourselves by making a carved image in the form of any figure — the likeness of a man or a woman,
17or the likeness of any animal on earth, any winged bird that flies in the sky,
18any creature that moves along the ground, or any fish in the waters below.
19And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon, and the stars — the whole host of heaven — do not be drawn away to bow down and worship things the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the sky.
20But the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace of Egypt to be the people of his inheritance, as you are today.
21The LORD was angry with me because of you and swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance.
22I will die in this land. I will not cross the Jordan. But you will cross over and take possession of that good land.
23Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you, and do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden.
24For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger,
26I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today: you will quickly perish from the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.
27The LORD will scatter you among the nations, and only a few of you will survive among the nations where the LORD will drive you.
28There you will worship man-made gods — objects of wood and stone that cannot see, hear, eat, or smell.
29But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you search for him with all your heart and all your soul.
30When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to him.
31For the LORD your God is a compassionate God. He will not abandon or destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant he swore to your ancestors.
32Ask about the distant past, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth. Search from one end of the sky to the other: has anything as great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?
33Has any other people ever heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?
34Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation by testing, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds — like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
35You were shown these things so that you would know that the LORD is God — there is no other besides him.
36From heaven he made his voice heard to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.
37Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his presence and his great strength,
38to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land and give it to you as your inheritance, as it is today.
39Acknowledge and take to heart today that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.
40Keep his statutes and commands that I am giving you today, so that things will go well for 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.
41Then Moses set aside three cities east of the Jordan,
42so that anyone who accidentally killed someone — without prior hostility — could flee there and find protection from death.
43The cities were: Bezer in the wilderness plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.
44This is the law Moses set before the Israelites.
45These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances that Moses spoke to the Israelites after they came out of Egypt,
46in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon, whom Moses and the Israelites defeated when they came out of Egypt.
47They had taken possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan — the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan —
48from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley to Mount Siyon (that is, Hermon),
49including all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Dead Sea below the slopes of Pisgah.