Deuteronomy 4:15-40 - Worshiping The True God
15 So keep watch on yourselves with care; for you saw no form of any sort on the day when the voice of the Lord came to you in Horeb out of the heart of the fire: 16 So that you may not be turned to evil ways and make for yourselves an image in the form of any living thing, male or female, 17 Or any beast of the earth, or winged bird of the air, 18 Or of anything which goes flat on the earth, or any fish in the water under the earth. 19 And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven, and you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the army of heaven, do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship, or become the servants of what the Lord has given equally to all peoples under heaven. 20 But the Lord has taken you out of the flaming fire, out of Egypt, to be to him the people of his heritage, as you are today.
21 And the Lord was angry with me because of you, and made an oath that I was not to go over Jordan into the good land which the Lord is giving you for your heritage: 22 But death is to come to me in this land, I may not go over Jordan: but you will go over and take that good land for your heritage. 23 Take care that you do not let the agreement of the Lord your God, which he has made with you, go out of your mind, or make for yourselves images of any sort, against the orders which the Lord your God has given you. 24 For the Lord your God is an all-burning fire, and he will not let the honour which is his be given to any other.
25 If, when you have had children and children's children, and have been living a long time in the land, you are turned to evil ways, and make an image of any sort, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, moving him to wrath: 26 May heaven and earth be my witnesses against you today, that destruction will quickly overtake you, cutting you off from that land which you are going over Jordan to take; your days will not be long in that land, but you will come to a complete end. 27 And the Lord will send you wandering among the peoples; only a small band of you will be kept from death among the nations where the Lord will send you. 28 There you will be the servants of gods, made by men's hands, of wood and stone, having no power of seeing or hearing or taking food or smelling. 29 But if in those lands you are turned again to the Lord your God, searching for him with all your heart and soul, he will not keep himself from you. 30 When you are in trouble and all these things have come on you, if, in the future, you are turned again to the Lord your God, and give ear to his voice: 31 Because the Lord your God is a God of mercy, he will not take away his help from you or let destruction overtake you, or be false to the agreement which he made by an oath with your fathers.
32 Give thought now to the days which are past, before your time, from the day when God first gave life to man on the earth, and searching from one end of heaven to the other, see if such a great thing as this has ever been, or if anything like it has been talked of in story. 33 Has any people ever gone on living after hearing the voice of God out of the heart of the fire as you did? 34 Has God ever before taken a nation for himself from out of another nation, by punishments and signs and wonders, by war and by a strong hand and a stretched-out arm and great acts of wonder and fear, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes? 35 All this he let you see, so that you might be certain that the Lord is God and there is no other. 36 Out of heaven itself his voice came to you, teaching you; and on earth he let you see his great fire; and his words came to your ears out of the heart of the fire. 37 And because of his love for your fathers, he took their seed and made it his, and he himself, present among you, took you out of Egypt by his great power; 38 Driving out before you nations greater and stronger than you, to take you into their land and give it to you for your heritage, as at this day. 39 So today be certain, and keep the knowledge deep in your hearts, that the Lord is God, in heaven on high and here on earth; there is no other God. 40 Then keep his laws and his orders which I give you today, so that it may be well for you and for your children after you, and that your lives may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for ever.