Deuteronomy 4:1-24

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Moses Commands Obedience

4 “So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.^{(A) 2} You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.^{(B) 3} You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did with regard to the Baal of Peor, how the Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor,^{(C) 4} while those of you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today.

⁵ “See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. ⁶ You must observe them and perform them, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’^{(D) 7} For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?^{(E) 8} And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

⁹ “But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children^(F)— ¹⁰ how you once stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth and may teach their children so’;^{(G) 11} you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds.^{(H) 12} Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.^{(I) 13} He declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the ten commandments,^[a] and he wrote them on two stone tablets.^{(J) 14} And the Lord charged me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.

¹⁵ “Since you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, watch yourselves closely, ¹⁶ so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female,^{(K) 17} the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, ¹⁸ the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. ¹⁹ And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven.^{(L) 20} But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron smelter, out of Egypt, to become a people of his very own possession, as you are now.^(M)

²¹ “The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he vowed that I should not cross the Jordan and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving for your possession.^{(N) 22} For I am going to die in this land without crossing over the Jordan, but you are going to cross over to take possession of that good land.^{(O) 23} So be careful, lest you forget the covenant that the Lord your God made with you and make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you.^{(P) 24} For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.^(Q)