Nothing added, nothing taken away
1Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to keep, so that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you. 2Do not add to what I am commanding you, and do not subtract from it, but keep the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am giving you. 3Your own eyes have seen what Yahweh did at Baal-peor — Yahweh your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed Baal-peor, 4but you who held fast to Yahweh your God are all alive today. 5See, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, just as Yahweh my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to possess. 6Keep them and do them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the peoples who hear of all these statutes and say, “What a wise and understanding people this great nation is!” 7For what great nation has a god as near to it as Yahweh our God is to us whenever we call on him? 8And what great nation has statutes and ordinances as righteous as this whole law I am setting before you today?
What you saw at Horeb
9Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to your children’s children — 10the day you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, “Gather the people before 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 may teach them to their children.” 11You came near and stood at the base of the mountain, while the mountain blazed with fire up to the heart of the sky, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and thick gloom. 12Yahweh spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no shape — only a voice. 13He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to keep — the Ten Words — and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14At that time Yahweh commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances, so that you might follow them in the land you are crossing over to possess. 15So watch yourselves closely — for you saw no shape on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire — 16so that you do not act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in any shape, whether of a male or a female, 17or the shape of any animal on the earth, or the shape of any winged bird that flies in the sky, 18or the shape of anything that crawls on the ground, or the shape of any fish in the waters below the earth. 19And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, the whole array of heaven, do not be led astray to bow down to them and serve them — things Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven. 20But you Yahweh has taken and brought out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be his own people, his inheritance, as you are today. 21Yahweh was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan and would not enter the good land Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance. 22I am going to die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan. But you are going to cross over and take possession of that good land. 23Be careful not to forget the covenant of Yahweh your God that he made with you, and not to make for yourselves a carved image in any shape that Yahweh your God has forbidden you. 24For Yahweh your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Warning of exile — and return
25When you father children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly and make a carved image in any shape, doing what is evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God and provoking him to anger, 26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will quickly and utterly perish from the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long there — you will be utterly destroyed. 27Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations where Yahweh will drive you. 28There you will serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, that cannot see or hear or eat or smell. 29But from there you will seek Yahweh your God, and you will find him, if you search for him with all your heart and all your soul. 30When you are in distress and all these things have overtaken 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, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. 32Ask now about the days long past, before your time, from the day God created humankind on the earth, and ask from one end of the heavens to the other: has anything as great as this ever happened, or been heard of? 33Has any people ever heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? 34Or has any god ever tried to come and take a nation for himself out of the midst of another nation, by trials, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, and great terrors — all that 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 showed you his great fire, and you heard his words out of the fire. 37Because he loved your fathers, he chose their descendants after them, and he brought you out of Egypt himself, by his great power, 38to drive 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 this today, and take it to heart: Yahweh is God, in the heavens above and on the earth below. There is no other. 40Keep his statutes and his commandments, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, and so that you may live long in the land Yahweh your God is giving you for all time.
Three cities of refuge, and a colophon
41Then Moses set apart three cities east of the Jordan, 42so that a person who killed his neighbor unintentionally, without previous hatred, could flee there — 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. 44This is the law Moses set before the Israelites. 45These are the testimonies, statutes, and ordinances Moses spoke to the Israelites after they came out of Egypt, 46east of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses and the Israelites struck down after they came out of Egypt. 47They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, 48from Aroer, on the edge of the Wadi Arnon, to Mount Sion — that is, Hermon — 49together with the whole Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.
