Deuteronomy 4-6

Deuteronomy 4

¹And now give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I am teaching you, and do them; so that life may be yours, and you may go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

²Make no addition to the orders which I give you, and take nothing from them, but keep the orders of the Lord your God which I give you.

³Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor: for destruction came from the Lord on all those among you who went after Baal-peor.

⁴But you who kept faith with the Lord are living, every one of you, today.

⁵I have been teaching you laws and decisions, as I was ordered to do by the Lord my God, so that you might keep them in the land to which you are going to take it for your heritage.

⁶So keep these laws and do them; for so will your wisdom and good sense be clear in the eyes of the peoples, who hearing all these laws will say, Truly, this great nation is a wise and far-seeing people.

⁷For what great nation has a god so near to them as the Lord our God is, whenever we are turned to him in prayer?

⁸And what great nation has laws and decisions so right as all this law which I put before you today?

⁹Only take care, and keep watch on your soul, for fear that the things which your eyes have seen go from your memory and from your heart all the days of your life; but let the knowledge of them be given to your children and to your children's children;

¹⁰That day when you were waiting before the Lord your God in Horeb, and the Lord said to me, Make all the people come together, so that hearing my words they may go in fear of me all the days of their life on earth and give this teaching to their children.

¹¹And you came near, waiting at the foot of the mountain; and flames of fire went up from the mountain to the heart of heaven, with dark clouds, and all was black as night.

¹²And the voice of the Lord came to you out of the fire: the sound of his words came to your ears but you saw no form; there was nothing but a voice.

¹³And he gave you his agreement with you, the ten rules which you were to keep, which he put in writing on the two stones of the law.

¹⁴And the Lord gave me orders at that time to make clear to you these laws and decisions, so that you might do them in the land to which you are going, and which is to be your heritage.

¹⁵So keep watch on yourselves with care; for you saw no form of any sort on the day when the voice of the Lord came to you in Horeb out of the heart of the fire:

¹⁶So that you may not be turned to evil ways and make for yourselves an image in the form of any living thing, male or female,

¹⁷Or any beast of the earth, or winged bird of the air,

¹⁸Or of anything which goes flat on the earth, or any fish in the water under the earth.

¹⁹And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven, and you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the army of heaven, do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship, or become the servants of what the Lord has given equally to all peoples under heaven.

²⁰But the Lord has taken you out of the flaming fire, out of Egypt, to be to him the people of his heritage, as you are today.

²¹And the Lord was angry with me because of you, and made an oath that I was not to go over Jordan into the good land which the Lord is giving you for your heritage:

²²But death is to come to me in this land, I may not go over Jordan: but you will go over and take that good land for your heritage.

²³Take care that you do not let the agreement of the Lord your God, which he has made with you, go out of your mind, or make for yourselves images of any sort, against the orders which the Lord your God has given you.

²⁴For the Lord your God is an all-burning fire, and he will not let the honour which is his be given to any other.

²⁵If, when you have had children and children's children, and have been living a long time in the land, you are turned to evil ways, and make an image of any sort, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, moving him to wrath:

²⁶May heaven and earth be my witnesses against you today, that destruction will quickly overtake you, cutting you off from that land which you are going over Jordan to take; your days will not be long in that land, but you will come to a complete end.

²⁷And the Lord will send you wandering among the peoples; only a small band of you will be kept from death among the nations where the Lord will send you.

²⁸There you will be the servants of gods, made by men's hands, of wood and stone, having no power of seeing or hearing or taking food or smelling.

²⁹But if in those lands you are turned again to the Lord your God, searching for him with all your heart and soul, he will not keep himself from you.

³⁰When you are in trouble and all these things have come on you, if, in the future, you are turned again to the Lord your God, and give ear to his voice:

³¹Because the Lord your God is a God of mercy, he will not take away his help from you or let destruction overtake you, or be false to the agreement which he made by an oath with your fathers.

³²Give thought now to the days which are past, before your time, from the day when God first gave life to man on the earth, and searching from one end of heaven to the other, see if such a great thing as this has ever been, or if anything like it has been talked of in story.

³³Has any people ever gone on living after hearing the voice of God out of the heart of the fire as you did?

³⁴Has God ever before taken a nation for himself from out of another nation, by punishments and signs and wonders, by war and by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm and great acts of wonder and fear, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes?

³⁵All this he let you see, so that you might be certain that the Lord is God and there is no other.

³⁶Out of heaven itself his voice came to you, teaching you; and on earth he let you see his great fire; and his words came to your ears out of the heart of the fire.

³⁷And because of his love for your fathers, he took their seed and made it his, and he himself, present among you, took you out of Egypt by his great power;

³⁸Driving out before you nations greater and stronger than you, to take you into their land and give it to you for your heritage, as at this day.

³⁹So today be certain, and keep the knowledge deep in your hearts, that the Lord is God, in heaven on high and here on earth; there is no other God.

⁴⁰Then keep his laws and his orders which I give you today, so that it may be well for you and for your children after you, and that your lives may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for ever.

⁴¹Then Moses had three towns marked out on the far side of Jordan looking to the east;

⁴²To which anyone causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate, might go in flight; so that in one of these towns he might be kept from death:

⁴³The names of the towns were Bezer in the waste land, in the table-land, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for Manasseh.

⁴⁴This is the law which Moses put before the children of Israel:

⁴⁵These are the rules and the laws and the decisions which Moses gave to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt;

⁴⁶On the far side of Jordan, in the valley facing Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel overcame after they had come out of Egypt:

⁴⁷And they took his land for a heritage, and the land of Og, king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, whose lands were on the other side of Jordan to the east;

⁴⁸From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon as far as Mount Sion, which is Hermon,

⁴⁹And all the Arabah on the far side of Jordan to the east, as far as the sea of the Arabah under the slopes of Pisgah.

Deuteronomy 5

¹And Moses sent for all Israel, and said to them, Give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I give you today, and give attention to them so that you may keep and do them.

²The Lord our God made an agreement with us in Horeb.

³The Lord did not make this agreement with our fathers but with us, who are all living and present here today.

⁴The word of the Lord came to you face to face on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire,

⁵(I was between the Lord and you at that time, to make clear to you the word of the Lord: because, through fear of the fire, you did not go up the mountain;) saying,

⁶I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.

⁷You are to have no other gods but me.

⁸You may not make for yourselves an image in the form of anything in heaven or on earth or in the waters under the earth:

⁹You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;

¹⁰And I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws.

¹¹You are not to make use of the name of the Lord your God for an evil purpose; whoever takes the Lord's name on his lips for an evil purpose will be judged as a sinner by the Lord.

¹²Keep the Sabbath day as a holy day, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God.

¹³On six days do all your work:

¹⁴But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on that day do no work, you or your son or your daughter, or your man-servant or your woman-servant, or your ox or your ass or any of your cattle, or the man from a strange country who is living among you; so that your man-servant and your woman-servant may have rest as well as you.

¹⁵And keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God took you out of that land by his strong hand and his stretched-out arm: for this reason the Lord has given you orders to keep the Sabbath day.

¹⁶Give honour to your father and your mother, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God; so that your life may be long and all may be well for you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁷Do not put anyone to death without cause.

¹⁸Do not be false to the married relation.

¹⁹Do not take the property of another.

²⁰Do not give false witness against your neighbour;

²¹Or let your desire be turned to your neighbour's wife, or his house or his field or his man-servant or his woman-servant or his ox or his ass or anything which is your neighbour's.

²²These words the Lord said to all of you together on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire, out of the cloud and the dark, with a great voice: and he said no more; he put them in writing on the two stones of the law and gave them to me.

²³And after hearing the voice which came out of the dark while the mountain was burning with fire, all the heads of your tribes and your chiefs came to me,

²⁴And said, The Lord has let us see his glory and his power, and his voice has come to us out of the fire: today we have seen that a man may go on living even after hearing the voice of God.

²⁵Why then is death to be our fate? For if the voice of the Lord our God comes to us any more, death will overtake us, and we will be burned up in this great fire.

²⁶For what man is there in all the earth, who, hearing the voice of the living God as we have, out of the heart of the fire, has been kept from death?

²⁷Do you go near: and after hearing everything which the Lord our God has to say, give us an account of all he has said to you, and we will give ear, and do it.

²⁸Then the Lord, hearing your words to me, said to me, The words which this people have said to you have come to my ears: what they have said is well said.

²⁹If only they had such a heart in them at all times, so that they might go in fear of me and keep my orders and that it might be well for them and for their children for ever!

³⁰Now say to them, Go back to your tents.

³¹But as for you, keep your place here by me, and I will give you all the orders and the laws and the decisions which you are to make clear to them, so that they may do them in the land which I am giving them for their heritage.

³²Take care, then, to do whatever the Lord your God has given you orders to do; let there be no turning away to the right hand or to the left.

³³Go on walking in the way ordered for you by the Lord your God, so that life may be yours and it may be well for you, and your days may be long in the land of your heritage.

Deuteronomy 6

¹Now these are the orders and the laws and the decisions which the Lord your God gave me for your teaching, so that you might do them in the land of your heritage to which you are going:

²So that living in the fear of the Lord your God, you may keep all his laws and his orders, which I give you: you and your son and your son's son, all the days of your life; and so that your life may be long.

³So give ear, O Israel, and take care to do this; so that it may be well for you, and you may be greatly increased, as the Lord the God of your fathers has given you his word, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁴Give ear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord:

⁵And the Lord your God is to be loved with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

⁶Keep these words, which I say to you this day, deep in your hearts;

⁷Teaching them to your children with all care, talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up.

⁸Let them be fixed as a sign on your hand, and marked on your brow;

⁹Have them lettered on the pillars of your houses and over the doors of your towns.

¹⁰And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land which he gave his oath to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you; with great and fair towns which were not of your building;

¹¹And houses full of good things not stored up by you, and places for storing water which you did not make, and vine-gardens and olive-trees not of your planting; and you have taken food and are full;

¹²Then take care that you keep your hearts true to the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.

¹³Let the fear of the Lord your God be in your hearts, and be his servants, taking your oaths by his name.

¹⁴Do not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about you;

¹⁵For the Lord your God who is with you is a God who will not let his honour be given to another; or the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, causing your destruction from the face of the earth.

¹⁶Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did in Massah.

¹⁷Keep with care the orders of the Lord your God, and his rules and his laws which he has given you;

¹⁸And do what is upright and good in the eyes of the Lord your God, so that it may be well for you and you may go in and take for your heritage that good land from which the Lord undertook by an oath to your fathers,

¹⁹To send out from before you all those who are against you.

²⁰And when your son says to you in time to come, What is the reason for these rules and laws and decisions which the Lord our God has given you?

²¹Then you will say to your son, We were servants under Pharaoh's yoke in Egypt; and the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand:

²²And the Lord did great signs and wonders against Egypt, and against Pharaoh and all his house, before our eyes:

²³And he took us out from that place, guiding us here to give us this land, as he said in his oath to our fathers.

²⁴And the Lord gave us orders to keep all these laws, in the fear of the Lord our God, so that it might be well for us for ever, and that he might keep us from death, as he has done to this day.

²⁵And it will be our righteousness if we take care to keep all this order before the Lord our God as he has given it to us.