¹And now, O Israel, hear the statutes and the justices that I am teaching you to do, so that you may live, and go in, and take possession of the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

²You shall not add to the word that I am commanding you, and you shall not diminish from it, so as to keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I am commanding you.

³Your own eyes are the ones that saw what Yahweh did at Baal-peor, for every man who walked after Baal-peor—Yahweh your God wiped him out from your midst.

⁴But you who clung to Yahweh your God are alive, all of you, today.

⁵See, I have taught you statutes and justices, just as Yahweh my God commanded me, to do so in the midst of the land into which you are about to go, to take possession of it.

⁶Keep them and do them, for it is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples, who will hear all these statutes and say: Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people.

⁷For what great nation has a God near to it, like Yahweh our God, in all our calling to him?

⁸And what great nation has statutes and justices that are righteous, like all this instruction which I am setting before your face today?

⁹Only be on your guard, and guard your being exceedingly, lest you forget the words that your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; and make them known to your children and to the children of your children.

¹⁰The day when you stood before the face of Yahweh your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me: Assemble the people to me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they will learn to fear me all the days that they are alive on the ground, and their children they shall teach.

¹¹You approached and stood under the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of the skies: darkness, cloud, and thick dark cloud.

¹²Yahweh spoke to you from the middle of the fire; you were hearing the sound of words, but you were seeing no form, only a voice.

¹³He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to do, the ten words, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.

¹⁴And Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and justices, for you to do them in the land where you are passing over to occupy it.

¹⁵You must keep watch very closely over your living selves, for you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire,

¹⁶lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves an idol, the form of any image, the pattern of male or female,

¹⁷the pattern of any livestock that is in the land, the pattern of any little winged bird that flies in the skies,

¹⁸the pattern of anything that creeps on the ground, the pattern of any fish that is in the waters beneath the land.

¹⁹And lest you lift up your eyes to the skies and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the skies, and be driven away and bow down to them and serve them, which Yahweh your God has apportioned to all the peoples under all the skies.

²⁰But Yahweh took you and brought you out of the furnace of iron, out of Egypt, to become his people of inheritance, as on this day.

²¹And Yahweh was angry with me because of your words, and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan and that I would not enter into the good land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance.

²²For I am about to die in this land; I am not crossing over the Jordan; but you are crossing over and will take possession of this good land.

²³Keep watch over yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he cut with you, and make for yourselves an idol, the form of anything that Yahweh your God has commanded you against.

²⁴For Yahweh your God is a fire that eats, he is a jealous God.

²⁵When you father children and children of children, and have grown old in the land, and you act corruptly and make an idol, the form of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, to provoke him to anger,

²⁶I call the skies and the land as witnesses against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from off the land where you are crossing over the Jordan to occupy it; you will not lengthen your days on it, for you will be utterly wiped out.

²⁷And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will drive you away.

²⁸And there you will serve gods, the work of human hands, wood and stone, which do not see, and do not hear, and do not eat, and do not smell.

²⁹But from there you will seek Yahweh your God, and you will find him, when you search for him with all your heart and with all your living being.

³⁰When you are in a tight place, and all these words come upon you, in the latter end of the days, you will turn back to Yahweh your God and you will hear his voice.

³¹For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not let you go, and he will not ruin you, and he will not forget the covenant of your fathers that he swore to them.

³²Indeed, ask now about the former days that were before you, from the day when God created humankind on the land, and from the end of the skies to the end of the skies: has there been anything like this great word, or has anything like it been heard?

³³Did a people ever hear the sound of God speaking from the middle of the fire, as you heard, and live?

³⁴Or has God ever attempted to come and take a nation for himself from the midst of another 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, like all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

³⁵You were shown, so as to know that Yahweh, he is God; there is no more beside him alone.

³⁶From the heavens he let you hear his sound to discipline you, and over the land he let you see his great fire, and his words you heard from the middle of the fire.

³⁷And because he loved your fathers, he chose their seed after them, and brought you out by his own presence, with his great strength from Egypt,

³⁸to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you from before you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as on this day.

³⁹You will know this day and return to your heart that Yahweh, he is God in the heavens from above and over the land from under; there is no other again.

⁴⁰And keep his statutes and his commandments, which I am commanding you today, so that it will go well for you and for your sons after you, and so that you may lengthen your days on the ground that Yahweh your God is giving you, all the days.

⁴¹Then Moses set apart three cities across the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun,

⁴²for a killer to flee there, one who slays his neighbor without knowledge and was not hating him from yesterday or the day before; he may flee to one of these cities and live.

⁴³Bezer in the wilderness, in the land of the plateau, for the Reubenite; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadite; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassite.

⁴⁴And this is the instruction that Moses put before the face of the children of Israel.

⁴⁵These are the testimonies and the statutes and the justices that Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt,

⁴⁶on the side of the Jordan, in the valley in front of Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorite, who dwelled in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck when they came out from Egypt.

⁴⁷They took possession of his land and the land of Og the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorite who were on the side of the Jordan, toward the sunrise.

⁴⁸from Aroer, which is on the edge of the wadi of Arnon, and as far as the mountain of Siyon, that is Hermon,

⁴⁹and all the Plain on the side of the Jordan toward the sunrise, and as far as the sea of the Plain, below the slopes of Pisgah.