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Deuteronomy 4

1“Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and judgments I am teaching you to carry out, so that you may live and enter and possess the land Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you. 2You must not add to the word I command you or take away from it, but keep the commandments of Yahweh your God that I command you. 3Your own eyes saw what Yahweh did at Baal-peor: Yahweh your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed Baal of Peor. 4But you who held fast to Yahweh your God are all alive today. 5Look, I have taught you statutes and judgments, as Yahweh my God commanded me, for you to carry them out in the land you are entering to possess. 6Keep them and carry them out, because this is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7For what great nation has a god so near to it as Yahweh our God is whenever we call to him? 8And what great nation has statutes and judgments as righteous as all this instruction I am setting before you today?

9“Only take care, and guard your life carefully, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen and they do not leave your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your sons and your sons’ sons— 10the day you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, ‘Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the ground and may teach their sons.’ 11You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was burning with fire to the heart of the heavens, with darkness, cloud, and thick gloom. 12Yahweh spoke to you from within the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form—only a voice. 13He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to carry out, the ten words, and wrote them on two stone tablets. 14At that time Yahweh commanded me to teach you statutes and judgments, for you to carry them out in the land you are crossing over to possess.

15“So guard your lives carefully, because you saw no form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from within the fire. 16Do not act corruptly and make yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of a male or a female, 17the likeness of any animal on earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the heavens, 18the likeness of anything that crawls on the ground, or the likeness of any fish in the waters below the earth. 19And do not lift your eyes to the heavens, see the sun, the moon, and the stars—all the army of the heavens—and be drawn away to bow down to them and serve them. Yahweh your God has allotted them to all the peoples under all the heavens. 20But Yahweh took you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to become his people, his inheritance, as you are today. 21Yahweh was angry with me because of you, and swore that I would not cross the Jordan or enter the good land Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance. 22For I am to die in this land; I am not crossing the Jordan. But you are crossing over and will possess this good land. 23Take care that you do not forget the covenant Yahweh your God made with you and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything Yahweh your God has forbidden you. 24For Yahweh your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

25“When you father sons and sons’ sons and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly and make a carved image in any form, doing what is evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God to provoke him, 26I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you today: you will certainly perish quickly from the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days on it; you will certainly be destroyed. 27Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh drives you. 28There you will serve gods made by human hands, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. 29From there you will seek Yahweh your God, and you will find him if you search for him with all your heart and all your life. 30When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the days to come, you will return to Yahweh your God and listen to his voice. 31For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God. He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

32“Ask now about the former days, before your time, from the day God created humankind on the earth. Ask from one end of the heavens to the other: has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it been heard? 33Has a people heard the voice of God speaking from within the fire, as you have heard, and lived? 34Or has a god ever attempted to come and take a nation for himself from within another nation, through trials, signs, wonders, war, a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and great terrors, like everything Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35You were shown these things so that you would know that Yahweh is God; there is no other besides him. 36From the heavens he let you hear his voice to discipline you, and on earth he let you see his great fire. You heard his words from within the fire. 37Because he loved your fathers, he chose their seed after them and brought you out of Egypt by his own presence, by his great power, 38to drive out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as it is today. 39Know today, and bring it back to your heart, that Yahweh is God in the heavens above and on the earth below; there is no other. 40Keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, so that it may go well with you and your sons after you, and so that you may prolong your days on the ground Yahweh your God is giving you for all time.”

41Then Moses set apart three towns across the Jordan toward the sunrise, 42so that someone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him previously, could flee there. He could flee to one of these towns and live: 43Bezer in the wilderness, in the plateau country, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

44This is the instruction Moses set before the sons of Israel. 45These are the testimonies, statutes, and judgments Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out of Egypt, 46across the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. Moses and the sons of Israel defeated him when they came out of Egypt. 47They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings across the Jordan toward the sunrise, 48from Aroer on the bank of the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Sion—that is, Hermon— 49and all the Arabah across the Jordan to the east, as far as the Sea of the Arabah below the slopes of Pisgah.

Translation notes 6

4:7–8 — Nearness and righteousness. The first question can also be read “has gods so near.” Hebrew uses a plural form for “God/gods” and a plural adjective; the comparison with Yahweh makes the singular English reading appropriate without removing the alternative.

4:9–14 — Heart, life, and ten words. “Heart” includes thought and memory; “guard your life” addresses the person, not an immaterial component alone. “Ten words” is the Hebrew designation commonly rendered “Ten Commandments.” The fire reaches “the heart of the heavens,” preserving the image rather than converting it to a measurable height.

4:19–24 — Allotted heavenly bodies. The text says Yahweh allotted the heavenly bodies to the peoples; it does not explicitly say he authorized their worship. “Iron furnace” makes Egypt an image of severe affliction. “Jealous” describes Yahweh’s demand for exclusive covenant loyalty. “Forbidden” in verse 23 supplies the negative force understood from the prohibition; the Hebrew says “commanded you.”

4:29–31 — Returning. “All your life” renders nephesh as the living person’s entire devotion. “In the days to come” does not by itself specify a distant end-time timetable. The threatened destruction and the promise not to destroy stand in the passage’s own sequence, without an added explanation of how they fit together.

4:37 — His seed and presence. The Hebrew shifts from plural “your fathers” to singular “his seed after him.” The English makes the collective reference explicit as “their seed after them.” “By his own presence” renders “by/in his face”; the clause does not name an angel.

4:41–49 — Refuge and geography. The killer here acts unintentionally and without prior hatred; “murderer” would obscure that distinction. “Mount Sion” is this verse’s name for Hermon, distinct in Hebrew from Zion at Jerusalem. The Sea of the Arabah is the Dead Sea. “Slopes” is an approximate rendering of a geographical term also understood as watersheds.