The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Deuteronomy 04
1 Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and
to the ordinances which I teach you, to
do them, that you may live and go in and
possess the land which Yahweh, the God of
your fathers, gives you.
2 You shall not add to the word which
I command you, neither shall you take
away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I
command you.
3 Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did
because of Baal Peor;for Yahweh your God
has destroyed all the men who followed
Baal Peor from among you.
4 But you who were faithful to Yahweh
your God are all alive today.
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and
ordinances, even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the
middle of the land where you go in to
possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is
your wisdom and your understanding in
the sight of the peoples who shall hear all
these statutes and say, “Surely this great
nation is a wise and understanding people.”
7 For what great nation is there that has
a god so near to them as Yahweh our God
is whenever we call on him?
8 What great nation is there that has
statutes and ordinances so righteous as all
this law which I set before you today?
9 Only be careful, and keep your soul
diligently, lest you forget the things which
your eyes saw, and lest they depart from
your heart all the days of your life; but
make them known to your children and
your children’s children—
10 the day that you stood before Yahweh
your God in Horeb, when Yahweh said to
me, “Assemble the people to me, and I will
make them hear my words, that they may
learn to fear me all the days that they live
on the earth, and that they may teach their
children.”
11 You came near and stood under the
mountain. The mountain burned with
fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness,
cloud, and thick darkness.
12 Yahweh spoke to you out ofthe middle
of the fire: you heard the voice of words,
but you saw no form; you only heard a
voice.
13 He declared to you his covenant,
which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote
them on two stone tablets.
14 Yahweh commanded me at that time
to teach you statutes and ordinances, that
you might do them in the land where you
go over to possess it.
15 Be very careful, for you saw no kind of
form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you
in Horeb out of the middle of the fire,
16 lest you corrupt yourselves, and make
yourself a carved image in the form of any
figure, the likeness of male or female,
17 the likeness of any animal that is on
the earth, the likeness of any winged bird
that flies in the sky,
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 lest you lift up your eyes to the sky,
and when you see the sun and the moon
and the stars, even all the army of the sky,
you are drawn away and worship them,
and serve them, which Yahweh your God
has allotted to all the peoples under the
whole sky.
20 But Yahweh has taken you, and
brought you out of the iron furnace, out of
Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance,
as it is today.
21 Furthermore Yahweh was angry with
me for your sakes, and swore that I should
not go over the Jordan, and that I should
not go in to that good land which Yahweh
your God gives you for an inheritance;
22 but I must die in this land. I must not
go over the Jordan, but you shall go over
and possess that good land.
23 Be careful, lest youforgetthe covenant
of Yahweh your God, which he made with
you, and make yourselves a carved image
in the form of anything which Yahweh
your God has forbidden you.
24 For Yahweh your God is a devouring
fire, a jealous God.
25 When you father children and children’s children, and you have been long in
the land, and then corrupt yourselves, and
make a carved image in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in Yahweh
your God’s sight to provoke him to anger,
26 I call heaven and earth to witness
against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go
over the Jordan to possess it. You will not
prolong your days on it, but will utterly be
destroyed.
27 Yahweh will scatter you among the
peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will
lead you away.
28 There you will serve gods, the work
of men’s hands, wood and stone, which
neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But from there you shall seek Yahweh
your God, and you will find him when you
search after him with all your heart and
with all your soul.
30 When you are in oppression, and all
these thingshave come onyou, inthe latter
days you shall return to Yahweh your God
and listen to his voice.
31 For Yahweh your God is a merciful
God. He will not fail you nor 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 from
the one end ofthe sky to the other, whether
there has been anything as great as this
thing is, or has been heard like it?
33 Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking out of the middle of the fire, as
you have heard, and live?
34 Or has God tried to go and take a
nation for himself from among another
nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by
war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched
arm, and by great terrors, according to all
that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt
before your eyes?
35 It was shown to you so that you might
know that Yahweh is God. There is no one
else besides him.
36 Out of heaven he made you to hear his
voice, that he might instruct you. On earth
he made you to see his great fire; and you
heard his words out of the middle of the
fire.
37 Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their offspring after them,
and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;
38 to drive out nations from before you
greater and mightier than you, to bring
you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today.
39 Know therefore today, and take it
to heart, that Yahweh himself is God in
heaven above and on the earth beneath.
There is no one else.
40 You shall 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 Yahweh your God gives you for all time.
41 Then Moses set apart three cities beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise,
42 that the man slayer might flee there,
who kills his neighbor unintentionally and
didn’t hate him in time past, and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
43 Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain
country, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth
in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in
Bashan for the Manassites.
44 This is the law which Moses set before
the children of Israel.
45 These are the testimonies, and the
statutes, and the ordinances which Moses
spoke to the children of Israel when they
came out of Egypt,
46 beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king
of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon,
whom Moses and the children of Israel
struck when they came out of Egypt.
47 They took possession of his land and
the land of Og king of Bashan, the two
kings of the Amorites, who were beyond
the Jordan toward the sunrise;
48 from Aroer, which is on the edge of the
valley of the Arnon, even to Mount Zion
(also called Hermon),
49 and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan
eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah,
under the slopes of Pisgah.