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¹ NOW therefore hearken, O Israel, to the law and to the judgments which I teach you this day, to do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the LORD the God of your fathers gives you.² You shall not add to the commandment which I command you, neither shall you take from it, but you must keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.³ Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baal-peor; for every man who followed Baal-peor, the LORD your God has destroyed him from among you.⁴ But you who did cleave to the LORD your God are all alive this day.⁵ Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, as the LORD my God has commanded me, that you should do them in the land which you are entering, to possess it.⁶ And you shall keep them, therefore, and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes, and will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.⁷ For what nation is there so great, whose god is so near to it as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?⁸ And what nation is there so great, that has laws and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?⁹ Only take heed for yourselves, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but declare them to your children and your childrens children.¹⁰ The day that you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, Gather the people together before me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to worship me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.¹¹ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.¹² And the LORD spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.¹³ And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tablets of stone.¹⁴ And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might do them in the land into which you are going to possess it.¹⁵ Take therefore good heed to yourselves; for you saw no manner of form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire;¹⁶ Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make for yourselves images and the forms of any figure, the likeness of male or female,¹⁷ The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flies in the air.¹⁸ The likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth;¹⁹ And lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon, and the stars and all the host of heaven, should go astray and worship them and serve those things which the LORD your God has provided for all the peoples under heaven.²⁰ But the LORD has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be to him a people and an inheritance, as you are this day.²¹ Furthermore the LORD was angry with me on your account, and swore that I should not cross this Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance;²² Because I must die in this land. I must not cross this Jordan; but you shall cross it and possess that good land.²³ Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and corrupt yourselves, and make for yourselves images, or the likeness of anything, which the LORD your God has forbidden you.²⁴ For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a zealous God.²⁵ When you shall beget children and childrens children, and you shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves and make images or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoke him to anger;²⁶ I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land which you are going across the Jordan to possess; you shall not live long upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.²⁷ And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the nations where the LORD your God shall scatter you.²⁸ And there you shall serve gods, the work of mens hands, of wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.²⁹ But if from there you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find him, if you search for him with all your heart and with all your soul.³⁰ When you are in tribulation, and all these things are come upon you in the latter days, if you return to the LORD your God and shall be obedient to his voice³¹ (For the LORD your God is a merciful God), he will not destroy you, neither forsake you, nor forget the covenant which he swore to your fathers.³² For ask now about the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard like it.³³ Did any other people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?³⁴ Or have they tried out the God who went forth and took for himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs and by wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm and by great visions, according to all that the LORD your God did to the Egyptians before your eyes?³⁵ You saw and knew that the LORD is God; there is none else besides him.³⁶ Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might teach you; and upon earth he showed you his great fire; he made you to hear his words out of the midst of the fire.³⁷ And because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their descendants after them, and brought you out of Egypt with his own person, with a mighty power;³⁸ To destroy nations from before you, who are greater and mightier than you are, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.³⁹ Know therefore this day, and cause your heart to repent, for it is the LORD who is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is none else besides him.⁴⁰ You must keep therefore his statutes and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may be well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God gives you for ever.

⁴¹ Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan toward the rising sun;⁴² That the slayer might flee there, who might kill his neighbor unintentionally, and hated him not in time past; and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might live;⁴³ Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramath in Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Mathnin, of the Manassites.⁴⁴ This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel;⁴⁵ These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they came forth out of Egypt,⁴⁶ On this side of the Jordan, in the valley over against Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel slew when they came out of Egypt;⁴⁷ And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Mathnin, two kings of the Amorites, who were on this side of Jordan toward the rising sun;⁴⁸ From Adoer, which is on the edge of the river Arnon, as far as mount Serion, which is Hermon,⁴⁹ And all the low desert on this side of Jordan eastward, as far as the sea of the plain which is at the foot of Ashdod and Pisgah.