Deuteronomy 4:1-20

1Israel's people, listen to the rules and laws that I will now teach you. If you obey them, you will live. You will go into the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving to you. The land will belong to you, for you to live in.

2Do not add anything to these rules. Do not remove anything from them. You must obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving to you.

3You saw for yourselves what the Lord your God did at Baal-Peor. He killed every person among you who worshipped Baal there.

4But each of you who continued to trust the Lord your God is still alive today.

5Look! I have taught you rules and laws, as the Lord my God told me to do. Now you must obey them when you go into the land where you will live.

6Obey them carefully. That will show people of other nations that you are wise. They will hear about all your laws. Then they will say, ‘The people of this great nation are very wise and clever!’

7No other nation has a god who is near to them like the Lord our God. Even great nations have no god like that. But when we pray to the Lord our God, he listens!

8And no other great nation has rules and laws that are as fair as ours. That is God's Law that I am giving to you today.

9But be very careful! Never forget the things that you yourselves have seen. Remember these things for as long as you live. Tell your children and your grandchildren about all the things that God has done.

10Remember when you stood in front of the Lord your God at Sinai. He said to me, ‘Bring all the people here to me so that I can tell them my commands. Then they will learn to respect me and obey me. They will do this for as long as they live and they will teach my commands to their children.’

11At that time, you came and you stood at the edge of the mountain. You saw that the fire on the mountain reached up to the sky. But the sky was full of black clouds and it was dark.

12Then the Lord spoke to you from the middle of the fire. You heard him as he spoke, but you did not see him. You only heard a voice.

13He told you about his covenant and the ten commands that he wrote on two flat pieces of stone. He commanded you to obey them.

14At that time, the Lord commanded me to teach you his rules and his laws. You must obey them in the land that you will now go in to live there.

15Remember when the Lord spoke to you at Mount Horeb from the middle of the fire. You did not see him in any shape. So be very careful about everything that you do.

16Do not make any image to be your god. That would be a sin. Do not make an image in any shape as your idol. Do not copy the shape of a man or a woman,

17or the shape of any animal or bird.

18Do not copy the shape of anything that moves along the ground, or any fish that swims in the deep water.

19When you look up at the sky, you see the sun, the moon and the stars. They all shine up in the sky. But do not bend down low to them or worship them. They are there because the Lord your God has made them. He has given them to people everywhere in the world.

20But you belong to the Lord. He brought you out of Egypt, which was like a hot oven where you had much pain. He rescued you, to be his own special people, as you are today.