1Now then, Israel, listen to the laws and the rules that I teach you. Keep them, so that you may live, and go in and take the land that the LORD God of your fathers is giving you.
2You must not add anything to the word that I command you, and you must not take anything away from it. Keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.
3Your own eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor. Every man who followed Baalpeor was destroyed from among you by the LORD your God.
4But you who held fast to the LORD your God are all alive today.
5Look, I have taught you laws and rules, just as the LORD my God commanded me. You are to live by them in the land you are going in to take.
6So keep them and do them. This is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations. They will hear all these laws and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people."
7For what nation is so great that it has a god so near to it, as the LORD our God is near to us whenever we call on him?
8And what nation is so great that it has laws and rules as righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
9Only be careful, and guard your soul with all your strength. Do not forget the things your eyes have seen. Do not let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to your children's children.
10Remember above all the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb. The LORD said to me, "Gather the people together for me, and I will let them hear my words. Then they will learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and they will teach their children."
11You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain burned with fire up to the middle of heaven, with darkness, clouds and thick gloom.
12The LORD spoke to you out of the middle of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice.
13He told you his covenant, which he commanded you to keep, the ten commandments. He wrote them on two tablets of stone.
14At that time the LORD commanded me to teach you laws and rules, so that you would do them in the land you are crossing over to take.
15So be very careful. You saw no form of any kind on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the middle of the fire.
16Do not ruin yourselves by making a carved image for yourselves, in the shape of any figure, the likeness of a male or a female,
17or the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
18or the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish that is in the waters below the earth.
19And do not lift up your eyes to the sky and look at the sun, the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away to worship them and serve them. The LORD your God gave them to all the nations under the whole heaven.
20But the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be his own people, his inheritance, as you are today.
21Also, the LORD was angry with me because of you. He swore that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not go into that good land which the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance.
22I must die in this land. I must not cross the Jordan. But you will cross over and take that good land.
23Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you. Do not make yourselves a carved image in the likeness of anything, for the LORD your God has forbidden you.
24For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25When you have children and grandchildren, and you have lived a long time in the land, you may ruin yourselves and make a carved image in the likeness of anything. You may do evil in the sight of the LORD your God and stir him to anger.
26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: you will quickly and completely perish from the land you are crossing the Jordan to take. You will not live long there, but will be utterly destroyed.
27The LORD will scatter you among the nations. Only a few of you will be left among the nations where the LORD will drive you.
28There you will serve gods made by human hands, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
29But 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.
30When you are in trouble, and all these things have come upon you, in the days to come, you will turn to the LORD your God and obey his voice.
31(For the LORD your God is a merciful God.) He will not leave you or destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant with your fathers, which he swore to them.
32Ask now about the days that are past, the days before you, since the day God created man on the earth. Ask from one end of the sky to the other, whether anything as great as this has ever happened, or whether anything like it has been heard.
33Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?
34Or has any god tried to go and take for himself a nation out of the middle of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35It was shown to you, so that you might know that the LORD is God. There is no other besides him.
36Out of heaven he made you hear his voice, to teach you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words out of the middle of the fire.
37Because he loved your fathers, he chose their children after them. He brought you out of Egypt in his presence with his great power,
38to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you, and to bring you in and give you their land as your inheritance, as it is today.
39So know today, and take it to heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.
40Keep his laws and his commandments, which I command you today. Then it will go well with you and with your children after you, and you will live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you for ever.
41Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan, toward the sunrise,
42so that a killer could flee there, one who killed his neighbour by accident and had not hated him before. He could flee to one of these cities and live.
43They were Bezer in the wilderness, in the flat country, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44This is the law that Moses set before the children of Israel.
45These are the testimonies, the laws and the rules that Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt,
46on this side of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Bethpeor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon. Moses and the children of Israel struck him down after they came out of Egypt.
47They took his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were on this side of the Jordan, toward the sunrise,
48from Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, as far as mount Sion, that is, Hermon,
49and all the plain on this side of the Jordan, eastward, as far as the sea of the plain, below the slopes of Pisgah.