Deuteronomy 4

4 ¹Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and rules I am teaching you to follow, so you may live and go take possession of the land your Father, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. ²Do not add to the word I command you, or take from it, so you keep the commandments of your Father that I command you. ³Your own eyes saw what your Father did at Baal-peor: he destroyed from among you every man who followed the Baal of Peor. ⁴But you who held fast to your Father, the LORD, are all alive today. ⁵See, I taught you statutes and rules, as your Father commanded me, to do them in the land you are entering to possess. ⁶Keep and do them; this is your wisdom and understanding before the nations, who will hear all these decrees and say, 'This great nation is truly a wise and understanding people.' ⁷What great nation has a god as near to it as your Father is to us whenever we call on him? ⁸What great nation has statutes and rules as just as all this law I set before you today?

⁹Only be careful and watch yourself closely, so you do not forget what your eyes have seen, and they do not leave your heart all your days. Make them known to your children and your children's children.

¹⁰Remember the day you stood before your Father at Horeb, when he told me, "Gather the people to me, and I will let them hear my words, so they learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and teach their children."

¹¹You came near and stood at the mountain's foot while it burned with fire to the heart of heaven—wrapped in darkness, cloud, and deep gloom. ¹²Your Father spoke to you from within the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form—only a voice. ¹³He declared his covenant to you, commanding you to keep it—the Ten Words—and wrote them on two stone tablets. ¹⁴And your Father commanded me then to teach you statutes and rules to follow in the land you are crossing to possess.

No Image Can Capture Your Father

¹⁵So watch yourselves very carefully, since you saw no form the day your Father spoke to you at Horeb from the fire, ¹⁶be careful not to act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷the likeness of any animal on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, ¹⁸the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, of any fish in the water below the earth. ¹⁹And do not lift your eyes to the heavens and, seeing the sun, moon, and stars—all the host of heaven—be drawn away to bow to them and serve them, which your Father allotted to all peoples under the whole heaven. ²⁰Your Father took you and brought you out of Egypt, the iron furnace, to be his own people, his inheritance, as you are today. ^a a v20 The "iron furnace" pictures a smelter's blast-hot kiln — Moses' image for the crushing, refining ordeal of slavery in Egypt. ²¹Now your Father was angry with me because of you and swore I would not cross the Jordan or enter the good land your Father is giving you to inherit. ²²I must die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you are crossing to take that good land. ²³Be careful not to forget the covenant your Father made with you, and make a carved image in the form of anything your Father has forbidden you. ²⁴For your Father is a consuming fire, a jealous Father. ²⁵When you have children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, if you act wickedly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and do what is evil in your Father's sight, provoking him to anger, ²⁶today I call heaven and earth to witness against you: you'll soon perish completely from the land you cross the Jordan to possess. Your days there will be few; you'll be totally wiped out. ²⁷Your Father will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where your Father drives you. ²⁸There you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that cannot see, hear, eat, or smell. ²⁹But from there you will seek your Father and find him, if you search for him with all your heart and soul. ³⁰When you are in distress and all these things come upon you in later days, you will return to your Father and obey his voice. ³¹Your Father is a merciful Father; he will not abandon you, destroy you, or forget the covenant he swore to your ancestors.

Our Father Alone Is God

³²Look back over the days long past, since our Father created humanity on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other: has anything this great ever happened or been heard of? ³³Has any people heard a god's voice speaking from within fire, as you have, and lived? ³⁴Or has any god dared to take a nation out of another nation for himself, by trials, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, and great terrors, according to all that your Father did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵It was shown to you, so you would know our Father is the Father; there is no other besides him. ^b b 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. ³⁶From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you; on earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from within the fire. ³⁷Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt himself, by his great power, ³⁸driving out before you nations greater and stronger than you, to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as it is today. ³⁹Know today, and take it to heart, that our Father is the Father in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. ⁴⁰Keep his statutes and commandments, which I command you today, so it goes well with you and your children after you, and you live long in the land your Father gives you for all time.

Moses Sets Apart Cities of Refuge

⁴¹Then Moses set apart three cities in the region beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, ⁴²so anyone who killed his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him before, could flee to one of these cities and live: ⁴³Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

The Law Moses Set Before Israel

⁴⁴This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel. ⁴⁵These are the testimonies, statutes, and rules Moses spoke to Israel when they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁶East of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon the Amorite king who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and Israel defeated after leaving Egypt. ⁴⁷They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings who lived beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, ⁴⁸from Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Valley to Mount Sion (that is, Hermon), ⁴⁹with all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, to the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.