1 “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and to the judgments which I am teaching you to do, so that you live, and will go in, and possess the land which YHWH God of your fathers has given to you. 2 You will not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor diminish from it, to keep the commands of your God YHWH which I am commanding you. 3 Your eyes have seen that which YHWH has done in Ba‘al-Peor, for every man who has gone after Ba‘al-Peor, your God YHWH has destroyed him from your middle. 4 And you who were cleaving to your God YHWH are alive today—all of you. 5 See, I have taught you statutes and judgments, as my God YHWH has commanded me, to do so in the middle of the land to where you are going in to possess it. 6 And you have kept and done them (for it is your wisdom and your understanding) before the eyes of the peoples who hear all these statutes, and they will say, Surely a people wise and understanding is this great nation. 7 For which is the great nation that has God so near to it, as our God YHWH, in all we have called to Him? 8 And which is the great nation which has righteous statutes and judgments according to all this laws which I am setting before you today? 9 Only, take heed to yourself, and watch your soul exceedingly, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they turn aside from your heart all the days of your life. And you make them known to your sons and to your sons’ sons. 10 Never forget the day when you stood before your God YHWH in Horeb, in YHWH’s saying to me, Assemble the people to Me, and I will cause them to hear My words, so that they learn to fear Me all the days that they are alive on the ground, and they will teach their sons. 11 And you drew near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire to the heart of the heavens, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness, 12 and YHWH spoke to you out of the middle of the fire. You were hearing a voice of words, but you were seeing no likeness, only a voice. 13 And He declared His covenant to you, which He had commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And YHWH had commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, for your doing them in the land to where you will be passing over to possess it. 15 And you were very watchful of your souls, for you had not seen any likeness in the day of YHWH’s speaking to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire, 16 lest you do corruptly, and had made for yourselves a carved image, a likeness of any figure: a form of male or female, 17 a form of any beast which is in the earth, a form of any winged bird which flies in the heavens, 18 a form of any crawling thing on the ground, a form of any fish which is in the waters below the earth. 19 And lest you lift up your eyes to the heavens, and saw the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of the heavens, and were drawn away, and bowed yourself to them and served them, which your God YHWH had apportioned to all the peoples under all the heavens. 20 And YHWH took you, and He brought you out from the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be to Him for a people, an inheritance, as at this day. 21 And YHWH had showed Himself angry with me because of your words, and swore to my not passing over the Jordan, and to my not going into the good land which your God YHWH has given to you for an inheritance. 22 For I will die in this land. I will not pass over the Jordan, but you will pass over and possess this good land. 23 Take heed to yourselves lest you forget the covenant of your God YHWH which He has made with you, and have made a carved image for yourselves, a likeness of anything concerning which your God YHWH has charged you. 24 For your God YHWH is a consuming fire—a zealous God. 25 When you father sons and sons’ sons, and you become old in the land, and do corruptly, and make a carved image, a likeness of anything, and do evil in the eyes of YHWH to provoke Him to anger, 26 I will caused the heavens and the earth to testify against you this day, that you perish utterly quickly from off the land to where you were passing over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong days on it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 And YHWH will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where YHWH led you, 28 and you will serve gods there, work of man’s hands, wood and stone, which do not see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29 And you will seek your God YHWH from there, and find Him when you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 In the distress of yours, when all these things find you in the latter end of the days, and you turn back to your God YHWH and listen to His voice— 31 for your God YHWH is a merciful God—He will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He has sworn to them. 32 For ask now of the former days which have been before you, from the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the heavens even to the other end of the heavens, whether there has been as this great thing, or if anything has been heard like it. 33 Has a people heard the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, you—and lived? 34 Or has God tried to go in to take a nation for Himself from the middle of a nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a strong hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that your God YHWH has done to you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 You—you have been shown it, to know that He, YHWH, is God. There is none else besides Him. 36 He has caused you to hear His voice from the heavens, to instruct you. And on earth He has shown you His great fire, and you have heard His words out of the middle of the fire. 37 And because that He loved your fathers, He also fixed on their seed after them, and brought you out in His presence, by His great power, from Egypt, 38 to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you from your presence, to bring you in to give their land to you for an inheritance, as at this day. 39 And you know today, and turn it back to your heart, that He, YHWH, is God in the heavens above and on the earth below—there is none else. 40 And you will keep His statutes and His commands which I am commanding you today, so that it is well for you, and for your sons after you, and so that you prolong days on the ground which your God YHWH has given to you—all the days.” 41 Then Moses separated three cities beyond the Jordan, toward the sun-rising, 42 for the fleeing there of the manslayer who kills his neighbor unknowingly, and he did not hate him before, and he will flee to one of these cities and live: 43 Bezer in the wilderness, in the land of the plain, for the Reubenite. And Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadite. And Golan in Bashan for the Manassite. 44 And this was the law which Moses had set before the sons of Israel. 45 These were the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses had spoken to the sons of Israel in their coming out of Egypt, 46 beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-Peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorite, who was staying in Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel had struck in their coming out of Egypt. 47 And they possessed his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorite who were beyond the Jordan, toward the sun-rising, 48 from Aroer, which was by the edge of the Brook of Arnon, even to Mount Zion, which was Hermon— 49 and all the plain beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the Sea of the Plain, below the Springs of Pisgah.