Moses Commands Obedience

“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.

Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor; for the Lord your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor.

But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.

“Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess.

“For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?

especially concerning the day you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’

And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.

Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you.

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

“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 do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger,

And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

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.

When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice

(for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

“For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard.

Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?

Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him.

Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”

Introduction to God’s Law

Now this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel.

The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.