1 ¶ Therefore now listen, O Israel, to the statutes and to the judgments, which I teach you, to do them, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers gives you.

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

3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for the LORD your God has destroyed all the men who followed Baalpeor, from among you.

4 But every one of you who clung fast to the LORD your God are alive this day.

5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land which you are entering to take possession.

6 So keep them and do them; for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, 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, who has God so near to them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?

8 And what great nation is there, that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?

9 Only take heed to yourself, and guard your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life: but teach them to your sons, and your sons’ sons;

10 Especially the day that you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, Gather the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.

11 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.

12 And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire: you heard the voice of the words, but saw no form; only you heard a voice.

13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.

14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might do them in the land which you are entering to possess.

15 Therefore take good heed to yourselves; for you did not see any kind of form on the day that the LORD spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:

16 Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourselves a graven image, the likeness of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

17 The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flies in the air,

18 The likeness of any thing that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:

19 And lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, should be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD your God has allotted to all nations under the whole heavens.

20 But the LORD has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as you are this day.

21 Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not cross over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance:

22 But I must die in this land, I must not cross over the Jordan: but you shall cross over, and possess that good land.

23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD your God has forbidden you.

24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

25 When you have fathered children, and children’s children, and you have grown old in the land, if you corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD your God, to provoke him to anger:

26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess; you will not live long upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.

27 And the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, where the LORD will drive you.

28 And 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 if from there you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.

30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things have come upon you, even in the latter days, if you turn to the LORD your God, and are obedient to his voice;

31 (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.

32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of the heavens to the other, whether anything so great as this has ever happened, or been heard of anywhere?

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

34 Or has God ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great 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 is God; there is none other beside him.

36 Out of heaven he made you hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and on the earth he showed you his great fire; and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.

37 And because he loved your fathers, he chose their seed after them, and brought you out in his presence by his mighty power from Egypt;

38 To drive out nations before you, greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.

39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and on the earth beneath: there is none other.

40 Therefore you shall keep his statutes, and his commandments, which I command you this day, 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 gives you, forever.

41 ¶ Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrise;

42 To which the slayer, who unintentionally killed his neighbor, without previously hating him, might flee; and by fleeing to one of these cities might live:

43 Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, on the plateau, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.

44 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel:

45 These are the testimonies, and 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, in the valley over against Bethpeor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who resided at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel defeated, after they had come out of Egypt:

47 And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, that were on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrise;

48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even to mount Sion, which is Hermon,

49 And all the plain on this side of the Jordan eastward, as far as the sea of the plain, below the slopes of Pisgah.