I“And now, Israel, listen to the laws and to the judgments that I’m teaching you to do, so that you’ll live, and you’ll come and take possession ofthe land that YHWH, your fathers’ God, is giving you. 2You shall not add onto the thing that I command you, and you shall not subtract from it: observing the commandments of YHWH, your God, that I command you. 3It’s your eyes that saw what YHWH did at Baal Peor, that every man who went after Baal Peor: YHWH, your God, destroyed him from among you. 4But you who were clinging to YHWH, your God: you’re all alive today! 5See: I’ve taught you laws and judgments as YHWH, my God, commanded me, to do so within the land to which you’re coming to take possession of it. 6And you shall observe and do them because it’s your wisdom and your understanding before the eyes of the peoples, in that they will hear all these laws and will say, ‘Only a wise and understanding people is this great nation.’ 7Because who is a great nation that has gods close to it like YHWH, our God, in all our calling to him? 8And who is a great nation that has just laws and judgments like all this instruction that I’m putting in front of you today?
9“Only be watchful, and watch yourself very much, in case you’ll forget the things that your eyes have seen and in case they’ll turn away from your heart, all the days of your life. But you shall make them known to your children and to your children’s children: 10the day that you stood in front of YHWH, your God, at Horeb, when YHWH said to me, ‘Assemble the people to me, and I’ll make them hear my words so that they’ll learn to fear me all the days that they’re living on the land, and they’ll teach their children.’ 11And you came forward and stood below the mountain, and the mountain was burning in fire to the heart of the skies: darkness, cloud, and nimbus. 12And YHWH spoke to you from inside the fire. You were hearing the sound of words, but you weren’t seeing a form, just sound. 13And He told you His covenant that He commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tablets of stones. 14And YHWH commanded me at that time to teach you laws and judgments, for you to do them in the land to which you’re crossing to take possession of it. 15And you shall be very watchful of yourselves—because you didn’t see any form in the day that YHWH spoke to you at Horeb from inside the fire— l6in case you’ll be corrupted, and you’ll make a statue, a form of any figure, a design of a male or a female, 17a design of any animal that’s in the earth, a design of any winged bird that flies in the skies, 18a design of anything that creeps on the ground, a design of any fish that’s in the water under the earth, 19and in case you’ll raise your eyes to the skies, and you’ll see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the array of the skies, and you’ll be moved so that you’ll bow to them and serve them, when YHWH, your God, has allocated them to all the peoples under all the skies. 20But YHWH has taken you, and He has brought you out from the iron furnace, from Egypt, to become a legacy people for him, as it is this day.
2I“And YHWH had been incensed at me over your matters, and He swore that I would not cross the Jordan and not come to the good land that YHWH, your God, is giving you as a legacy. 22So I am dying in this land. I’m not crossing the Jordan. But you are crossing, and you shall possess this good land. 23Watch yourselves, in case you’ll forget the covenant of YHWH, your God, that He made with you, and you’ll make a statue of any form about which YHWH, your God, has commanded you, 24because YHWH, your God: He is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25“When you’ll produce children and grandchildren and will have been in the land long, and you’ll be corrupt and make a statue of any form and do what is bad in the eyes of YHWH, your God, to provoke Him, 26I call the skies and the earth to witness regarding you today that you’ll perish quickly from the land to which you’re crossing the Jordan to take possession of it. You won’t extend days on it, but you’ll be destroyed! 27And YHWH will scatter you among the peoples, and you’ll be left few in number among the nations where YHWH will drive you. 28And you’ll serve gods, the work of human hands, wood and stone, there, that don’t see and don’t hear and don’t eat and don’t smell.
29“But if you’ll seek YHWH, your God, from there, then you’ll find Him, when you’ll inquire of Him with all your heart and all your soul. 3°When you have trouble, and all these things have found you, in the future days, if you’ll go back to YHWH, your God, and listen to His voice, 3IHe won’t let you down, and he won’t destroy you, because YHWH, your God, is a merciful God, and He won’t forget your fathers’ covenant that He swore to them.172 32Because ask of the earliest days that were before you, from the day that God created a human on the earth, and from one end of the skies to the other end of the skies: has there been anything like this great thing? or has anything like it been heard of? 33Has a people heard God’s voice speaking from inside a fire the way you heard—and lived? 34Or has God put it to the test, to come to take for Himself a people from among another people with tests, with signs, and with wonders and with war and with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with great fears like everything that YHWH, your God, has done for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35You have been shown in order to know that YHWH: He is God. There is no other outside of Him. 36From the skies He had you hear His voice in order to discipline you, and on the earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words from inside the fire. 37And because He loved your fathers He chose their seed after them, so He brought you out in front of Him from Egypt by His great power, 38to dispossess bigger and more powerful nations than you in front of you, to bring you, to give you their land as a legacy as it is today. 39And you shall know today and store it in your heart that YHWH: He is God in the skies above and on the earth below. There isn’t another. 4°And you shall observe His laws and His commandments that I command you today so it will be good for you and for your children after you, and so that you’ll extend days on the land that YHWH, your God, is giving you forever.”
4IThen Moses distinguished three cities across the Jordan toward the sun’s rising, 42for the manslayer who would slay his neighbor without knowing—and he had not hated him from the day before yesterday—to flee there, so he would flee to one of these cities and would live: 43Bezer in the wilderness of the plain for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44And this is the instruction that Moses set before the children of Israel. 45These are the testimonies and the laws and the judgments that Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they went out from Egypt, 46across the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck when they came out from the land of Egypt. 47And they took possession of his land, and of the land of Og, king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were across the Jordan at the sun’s rising, 48from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Wadi Arnon, to Mount Sion—that is Her-mon— 49and all the plain across the Jordan eastward to the sea of the plain below the slopes of Pisgah.