18. a replica of any creeping thing on the ground, a replica of any fish that is in the water below the earth.
19. And do this so that you do not lift your eyes toward heaven and observe the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heaven, and be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that Yahweh your God has allotted to all of the peoples under all of the heaven.
20. But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out from the furnace of iron, from Egypt, to be a people of inheritance to him, as it is this day.
21. “And Yahweh was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I would not cross the Jordan and that I would not go to the good land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance.
22. For I am going to die in this land; I am not going to cross the Jordan, but you are going to cross, and you are going to take possession of this good land.
23. Watch out for yourselves so that you do not forget the covenant of Yahweh your God that he had made with you and make for yourselves a divine image of the form of anything that Yahweh your God has forbidden,
24. for Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25. “When you have had children and grandchildren and you have grown old in the land and you act corruptly and you make a divine image of the form of anything and you do evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, thus provoking him to anger,
26. I call to witness against you today the heaven and the earth, that you will perish soon and completely from the land that you are crossing the Jordan into it to take possession of it; you will not live long on it, but you will be completely destroyed.
27. And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where Yahweh will lead you.
28. And you will there serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, gods that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot eat and cannot smell.
29. But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30. In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice.
31. For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.
32. “Yes, ask, please, about former days that preceded you from the day that God created humankind on the earth; ask even from one end of the heaven up to the other end of heaven whether anything ever happened like this great thing or whether anything like it was ever heard.
33. Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, just as you heard it, and lived?
34. Or has a god ever attempted to go to take for himself a nation from the midst of a nation, using trials and signs and wonders and war, with an outstretched arm and with great and awesome deeds, like all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?