²⁵ “When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and ^(A)do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger, ^26 (B)I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not ^[a]prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ And the Lord ^(C)will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. ²⁸ And ^(D)there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, ^(E)which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. ^29 (F)But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰ When you are in ^[b]distress, and all these things come upon you in the ^(G)latter days, when you ^(H)turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice ³¹ (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor ^(I)destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

³² “For ^(J)ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask ^(K)from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. ^33 (L)Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? ³⁴ Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, ^(M)by trials, ^(N)by signs, by wonders, by war, ^(O)by a mighty hand and ^(P)an outstretched arm, ^(Q)and by great ^[c]terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵ To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; ^(R)there is none other besides Him. ^36 (S)Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. ³⁷ And because ^(T)He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their ^[d]descendants after them; and ^(U)He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power, ^38 (V)driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. ³⁹ Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that ^(W)the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. ^40 (X)You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that ^[e]it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may ^[f]prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

Cities of Refuge East of the Jordan

⁴¹ Then Moses ^(Y)set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun, ^42 (Z)that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in time past, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might live: ^43 (AA)Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

Introduction to God’s Law

⁴⁴ Now this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. ⁴⁵ These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt, ⁴⁶ on this side of the Jordan, ^(AB)in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel ^(AC)defeated^[g] after they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷ And they took possession of his land and the land ^(AD)of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were on this side of the Jordan, toward the ^[h]rising of the sun, ^48 (AE)from Aroer, which is on the bank of the River Arnon, even to Mount ^[i]Sion (that is, ^(AF)Hermon), ⁴⁹ and all the plain on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the ^(AG)slopes of Pisgah.