Prologue to Deuteronomy

Chapter 4

⁵See, I have imparted to you laws and rules, as the Lord my God has commanded me, for you to abide by in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. ⁶Observe them faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say, “Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people.” ⁷For what great nation is there that has a god so close at hand as is the Lord our God whenever we call upon Him? ⁸Or what great nation has laws and rules as perfect as all this Teaching that I set before you this day?

⁹But take utmost care and watch yourselves scrupulously, so that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes and so that they do not fade from your mind as long as you live. And make them known to your children and to your children’s children: ¹⁰The day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to Me, “Gather the people to Me that I may let them hear My words, in order that they may learn to revere Me as long as they live on earth, and may so teach their children.” ¹¹You came forward and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with flames to the very skies, dark with densest clouds. ¹²The Lord spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape—nothing but a voice. ¹³He declared to you the covenant that He commanded you to observe, the Ten Commandments; and He inscribed them on two tablets of stone. ¹⁴At the same time the Lord commanded me to impart to you laws and rules for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.

¹⁵For your own sake, therefore, be most careful— since you saw no shape when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire—¹⁶not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, ¹⁷the form of any beast on earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the sky, ¹⁸the form of anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth. ¹⁹And when you look up to the sky and behold the sun and the moon and the stars, the whole heavenly host, you must not be lured into bowing down to them or serving them. These the Lord your God allotted to other peoples everywhere under heaven; ²⁰but you the Lord took and brought out of Egypt, that iron blast furnace, to be His very own people, as is now the case. [ . . . ]

²³Take care, then, not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God concluded with you, and not to make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness, against which the Lord your God has enjoined you. ²⁴For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, an impassioned God. [ . . . ]

³²You have but to inquire about bygone ages that came before you, ever since God created man on earth, from one end of heaven to the other: has anything as grand as this ever happened, or has its like ever been known? ³³Has any people heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have, and survived? ³⁴Or has any god ventured to go and take for himself one nation from the midst of another by prodigious acts, by signs and portents, by war, by a mighty and an outstretched arm and awesome power, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? ³⁵It has been clearly demonstrated to you that the Lord alone is God; there is none beside Him. [ . . . ] ³⁹Know therefore this day and keep in mind that the Lord alone is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other. ⁴⁰Observe His laws and commandments, which I enjoin upon you this day, that it may go well with you and your children after you, and that you may long remain in the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you for all time. [ . . . ]

⁴⁴This is the Teaching that Moses set before the Israelites: ⁴⁵these are the decrees, laws, and rules that Moses addressed to the people of Israel, after they had left Egypt, ⁴⁶beyond the Jordan, in the valley at Beth-peor [ . . . ].

Chapter 5

¹Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the laws and rules that I proclaim to you this day! Study them and observe them faithfully!

²The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. ³It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, the living, every one of us who is here today. ⁴Face to face the Lord spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire—⁵I stood between the Lord and you at that time to convey the Lord’s words to you, for you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain—saying: [ . . . ] [The text continues with the Ten Commandments. See the version from Exodus in The Ten Commandments.—Eds.]

¹⁹The Lord spoke those words—those and no more—to your whole congregation at the mountain, with a mighty voice out of the fire and the dense clouds. He inscribed them on two tablets of stone, which He gave to me. ²⁰When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, you came up to me, all your tribal heads and elders, ²¹and said, “The Lord our God has just shown us His majestic Presence, and we have heard His voice out of the fire; we have seen this day that man may live though God has spoken to him. ²²Let us not die, then, for this fearsome fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we shall die. ²³For what mortal ever heard the voice of the living God speak out of the fire, as we did, and lived? ²⁴You go closer and hear all that the Lord our God says, and then you tell us everything that the Lord our God tells you, and we will willingly do it.”

²⁵The Lord heard the plea that you made to me, and the Lord said to me, “I have heard the plea that this people made to you; they did well to speak thus. ²⁶May they always be of such mind, to revere Me and follow all My commandments, that it may go well with them and with their children forever! ²⁷Go, say to them, ‘Return to your tents.’ ²⁸But you remain here with Me, and I will give you the whole Instruction—the laws and the rules—that you shall impart to them, for them to observe in the land that I am giving them to possess.”

²⁹Be careful, then, to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left: ³⁰follow only the path that the Lord your God has enjoined upon you, so that you may thrive and that it may go well with you, and that you may long endure in the land you are to possess.

Chapter 6

¹And this is the Instruction—the laws and the rules— that the Lord your God has commanded [me] to impart to you, to be observed in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, ²so that you, your children, and your children’s children may revere the Lord your God and follow, as long as you live, all His laws and commandments that I enjoin upon you, to the end that you may long endure. ³Obey, O Israel, willingly and faithfully, that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly [in] a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, spoke to you.

⁴Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.^{a 5}You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. ⁷Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol^b on your forehead;^{c 9}inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. [ . . . ]

²⁰When, in time to come, your children ask you, “What mean the decrees, laws, and rules that the Lord our God has enjoined upon you?”^{d 21}you shall say to your children, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand. ²²The Lord wrought before our eyes marvelous and destructive signs and portents in Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household; ²³and us He freed from there, that He might take us and give us the land that He had promised on oath to our fathers. ²⁴Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these laws, to revere the Lord our God, for our lasting good and for our survival, as is now the case. ²⁵It will be therefore to our merit before the Lord our God to observe faithfully this whole Instruction, as He has commanded us.” [ . . . ]

Chapter 10

¹²And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you? Only this: to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in His paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, ¹³keeping the Lord’s commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good. ¹⁴Mark, the heavens to their uttermost reaches belong to the Lord your God, the earth and all that is on it! ¹⁵Yet it was to your fathers that the Lord was drawn in His love for them, so that He chose you, their lineal descendants, from among all peoples—as is now the case. ¹⁶Cut away, therefore, the thickening about your hearts and stiffen your necks no more. ¹⁷For the Lord your God is God supreme and Lord supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, ¹⁸but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing.—¹⁹You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

²⁰You must revere the Lord your God: only Him shall you worship, to Him shall you hold fast, and by His name shall you swear. ²¹He is your glory and He is your God, who wrought for you those marvelous, awesome deeds that you saw with your own eyes. ²²Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons in all; and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

Chapter 11

[ . . . ] ¹³If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Lord your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, ¹⁴I^e will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil—¹⁵I^ewill also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill. ¹⁶Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. ¹⁷For the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you. [ . . . ]

²⁶See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: ²⁷blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; ²⁸and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, ^fwhom you have not experienced.^f