5. Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land where you go in to possess it.
6. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”
7. For what great nation is there, that has a god so near to them, as the Lord our God is whenever we call on him?
8. What great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you today?
9. Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children;
10. the day that you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, “Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.”
11. You came near and stood under the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.
12. The Lord spoke to you out of the middle of the fire: you heard the voice of words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice.
13. He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets.
14. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it.
15. Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that the Lord spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire,
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.