Deuteronomy 4
New Century Version
Moses Tells Israel to Obey
4 Now, Israel, listen to the laws and commands I will teach you. Obey them so that you will live and so that you will go over and take the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving to you. 2 Don’t add to these commands, and don’t leave anything out, but obey the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.
3 You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how the Lord your God destroyed everyone among you who followed Baal in Peor. 4 But all of you who continued following the Lord your God are still alive today.
5 Look, I have taught you the laws and rules the Lord my God commanded me. Now you can obey the laws in the land you are entering, in the land you will take. 6 Obey these laws carefully, in order to show the other nations that you have wisdom and understanding. When they hear about these laws, they will say, “This great nation of Israel is wise and understanding.” 7 No other nation is as great as we are. Their gods do not come near them, but the Lord our God comes near when we pray to him. 8 And no other nation has such good teachings and commands as those I am giving to you today.
9 But be careful! Watch out and don’t forget the things you have seen. Don’t forget them as long as you live, but teach them to your children and grandchildren. 10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Mount Sinai. He said to me, “Bring the people together so I can tell them what I have to say. Then they will respect me as long as they live in the land, and they will teach these things to their children.” 11 When you came and stood at the bottom of the mountain, it blazed with fire that reached to the sky, and black clouds made it very dark. 12 The Lord spoke to you from the fire. You heard the sound of words, but you did not see him; there was only a voice. 13 The Lord told you about his Agreement, the Ten Commandments. He told you to obey them, and he wrote them on two stone tablets. 14 Then the Lord commanded me to teach you the laws and rules that you must obey in the land you will take when you cross the Jordan River.
Laws About Idols
15 Since the Lord spoke to you from the fire at Mount Sinai, but you did not see him, watch yourselves carefully! 16 Don’t sin by making idols of any kind, and don’t make statues—of men or women, 17 of animals on earth or birds that fly in the air, 18 of anything that crawls on the ground, or of fish in the water below. 19 When you look up at the sky, you see the sun, moon, and stars, and everything in the sky. But don’t bow down and worship them, because the Lord your God has made these things for all people everywhere. 20 But the Lord brought you out of Egypt, which tested you like a furnace for melting iron, and he made you his very own people, as you are now.
21 The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan River to go into the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your own. 22 I will die here in this land and not cross the Jordan, but you will soon go across and take that good land. 23 Be careful. Don’t forget the Agreement of the Lord your God that he made with you, and don’t make any idols for yourselves, as the Lord your God has commanded you not to do. 24 The Lord your God is a jealous God, like a fire that burns things up.
25 Even after you have lived in the land a long time and have had children and grandchildren, don’t do evil things. Don’t make any kind of idol, and don’t do what the Lord your God says is evil, because that will make him angry. 26 If you do, I ask heaven and earth to speak against you this day that you will quickly be removed from this land that you are crossing the Jordan River to take. You will not live there long after that, but you will be completely destroyed. 27 The Lord will scatter you among the other nations. Only a few of you will be left alive, and those few will be in other nations where the Lord will send you. 28 There you will worship gods made by people, gods made of wood and stone, that cannot see, hear, eat, or smell. 29 But even there you can look for the Lord your God, and you will find him if you look for him with your whole being. 30 It will be hard when all these things happen to you. But after that you will come back to the Lord your God and obey him, 31 because the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you. He will not forget the Agreement with your ancestors, which he swore to them.
The Lord Is Great
32 Nothing like this has ever happened before! Look at the past, long before you were even born. Go all the way back to when God made humans on the earth, and look from one end of heaven to the other. Nothing like this has ever been heard of! 33 No other people have ever heard God speak from a fire and have still lived. But you have. 34 No other god has ever taken for himself one nation out of another. But the Lord your God did this for you in Egypt, right before your own eyes. He did it with tests, signs, miracles, war, and great sights, by his great power and strength.
35 He showed you things so you would know that the Lord is God, and there is no other God besides him. 36 He spoke to you from heaven to teach you. He showed you his great fire on earth, and you heard him speak from the fire. 37 Because the Lord loved your ancestors, he chose you, their descendants, and he brought you out of Egypt himself by his great strength. 38 He forced nations out of their land ahead of you, nations that were bigger and stronger than you were. The Lord did this so he could bring you into their land and give it to you as your own, and this land is yours today.
39 Know and believe today that the Lord is God. He is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other god! 40 Obey his laws and commands that I am giving you today so that things will go well for you and your children. Then you will live a long time in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you forever.
Cities of Safety
41 Moses chose three cities east of the Jordan River, 42 where a person who accidentally killed someone could go. If the person was not killed because of hatred, the murderer’s life could be saved by running to one of these cities. 43 These were the cities: Bezer in the desert high plain was for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead was for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan was for the Manassites.
The Laws Moses Gave
44 These are the teachings Moses gave to the people of Israel. 45 They are the rules, commands, and laws he gave them when they came out of Egypt. 46 They were in the valley near Beth Peor, east of the Jordan River, in the land of Sihon. Sihon king of the Amorites ruled in Heshbon and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. 47 The Israelites took his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River. 48 This land went from Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon Ravine, to Mount Hermon. 49 It included all the Jordan Valley east of the Jordan River, and it went as far as the Dead Sea below Mount Pisgah.
Deuteronomy 4
King James Version
4 Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you.
2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye 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 all the men that followed Baalpeor, the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you.
4 But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day.
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
7 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
9 Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;
10 Specially the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, Gather me 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 upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.
11 And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.
12 And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.
13 And he declared unto 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 ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it.
15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:
16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude 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 flieth in the air,
18 The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:
19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.
20 But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.
21 Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and sware that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto that good land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance:
22 But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.
23 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee.
24 For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
25 When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke him to anger:
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
27 And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you.
28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;
31 (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?
34 Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, 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 Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him.
36 Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire.
37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;
38 To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.
40 Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever.
41 Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sunrising;
42 That the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live:
43 Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, of 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 spake unto the children of Israel, after they came forth out of Egypt.
46 On this side Jordan, in the valley over against Bethpeor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel smote, after they were come forth out of Egypt:
47 And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, which were on this side Jordan toward the sunrising;
48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon,
49 And all the plain on this side Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
