16. lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17. the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
18. the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
19. and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
20. But the Lord has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today.
21. Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land, which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance;
22. but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over, and possess that good land.
23. Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you.
24. For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
25. When you shall father children, and children’s children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a carved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in the Lord your God’s sight, to provoke him to anger;
26. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.
27. The Lord will scatter you amongst the peoples, and you will be left few in number amongst the nations, where the Lord will lead you away.
28. There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29. But from there you shall seek the Lord your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30. When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to the Lord your God, and listen to his voice.
31. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.
32. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the sky to the other, whether there has been anything as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?
33. Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and live?