Obey Your Father and Live
4 1 Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that your Father of your ancestors is giving you. 2 Do not add to the word that I command you, or take from it, that you may keep the commandments of your Father that I command you. 3 Your own eyes have seen what your Father did at Baal-peor, how he destroyed from among you every man who followed the Baal of Peor. 4 But you who held fast to your Father, the LORD, are all alive today. 5 See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as your Father commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 6 Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will 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 it as your Father is to us, whenever we call upon him? 8 And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
9 Only take care, and watch yourself closely, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children.
10 Remember the day you stood before your Father at Horeb, when he said to me, "Gather the people to me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children."
11 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and deep gloom. 12 Then your Father spoke to you from within the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to keep, the Ten Words; and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And your Father commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.
No Image Can Capture Your Father
15 Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day your Father spoke to you at Horeb from within the fire, 16 beware that you do not act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, 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 below the earth. 19 And do not lift up your eyes to the heavens, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that your Father has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20 But your Father has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. 1 1 v20 The "iron furnace" pictures a smelter's blast-hot kiln — Moses' image for the crushing, refining ordeal of slavery in Egypt. 21 Now your Father was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that your Father is giving you as an inheritance. 22 For I must die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you are going over to take possession of that good land. 23 Be careful not to forget the covenant of your Father that he made with you, and make a carved image in the form of anything that your Father has forbidden you. 24 For your Father is a consuming fire, a jealous Father.
25 When you have children and grandchildren, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of your Father, provoking him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 And your Father will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where your Father will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.
29 But from there you will seek your Father, and you will find him, if you search for him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the days to come, you will return to your Father and obey his voice. 31 For your Father is a merciful Father; he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.
Our Father Alone Is God
32 Look back over all the days of the past, since the day our Father created humanity on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other — has anything as great as this ever happened or been heard of? 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking from within fire, as you have heard, and still live? 34 Or has any god dared to take a nation for himself out 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 your Father did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that our Father is the Father; there is no other besides him. 2 2 v35 When Moses declares there is no God but the Father, he names the one God whom Jesus revealed as Father — a oneness that holds Father, Son, and Spirit together as one God. 36 From heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you; and on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words from within the fire. 37 And because he loved your ancestors and chose their offspring after them, he personally brought you out of Egypt, by his great power, 38 driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day. 39 Know therefore today, and take it to heart, that our Father is the Father in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40 Keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long in the land that your Father is giving you for all time.
Moses Sets Apart Cities of Refuge
41 Then Moses set apart three cities in the region beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, 42 so that anyone who killed his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in the past, might flee there to one of these cities and live: 43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
The Law Moses Set Before Israel
44 This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel. 45 These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the rules that Moses spoke to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt, 46 beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the people of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. 47 And they took possession of his land and the land of Og the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who lived beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, 48 from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, as far as Mount Sion (that is, Hermon), 49 together with all the Arabah beyond the Jordan to the east, as far as the Sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.