Deuteronomy 4:15-40 - Worshiping The True God
15 "Therefore, for your own sake, be very careful, since you did not see any form on the day that the LORD your God spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire. 16 Be careful! Otherwise, you will be destroyed when you make carved images for yourself all sorts of images in the form of man, woman, 17 any animal on earth, any winged bird that flies in the sky, 18 any creeping thing on the ground, or any fish in the sea. 19 Do not gaze toward the heavens and observe the sun, the moon, the stars the entire array of the sky with the intent to worship and serve what the LORD your God gave every nation. 20 For the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace out of Egypt to be the people of his inheritance, as you are today.
21 "But the LORD was angry with me because of you. So he swore that I'll never cross the Jordan River to enter the good land that the LORD your God is about to give you as an inheritance. 22 I'm going to die in this land and I won't cross the Jordan River, but you're about to cross over to possess that good land. 23 Be careful! Otherwise, you will forget the covenant of the LORD your God, who established that covenant with you. Don't make carved images of any likeness in violation of everything that you were commanded by the LORD your God. 24 Indeed, the LORD your God is a consuming fire. He is a jealous God."
25 "After you've borne children and grandchildren, have been there for a long time in the land, have become so corrupted that you make images of any form, and have done evil in the eyes of the LORD your God, you will provoke him to anger. 26 Heaven and earth will testify against what has occurred today: you'll surely and swiftly be destroyed from the land that you are about to possess by crossing the Jordan River. You won't live long in it, because you'll certainly be exterminated. 27 Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and you'll be fewer in number in the nations where the LORD your God will drive you. 28 There you'll serve gods made by human hands, serving trees and stones that cannot see, hear, eat, nor smell. 29 If from there you will seek the LORD your God, then you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and soul. 30 In your distress, when all these things happen to you in days to come and you return to the LORD your God, then you will hear his voice. 31 For God is compassionate. The LORD your God won't fail you. He won't destroy you or forget the covenant that he confirmed with your ancestors."
32 "Indeed, ask from one end of the heavens to the other about days of old, before your time, when God created mankind on the earth. Did we ever have anything as great as this, or ever hear of anything like it? 33 Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of a fire just as you did, and survived it? 34 Or has any god ever taken for himself one nation out from another nation with testings, signs, wonders, wars, awesome power, and magnificent, terrifying deeds as the LORD your God did in Egypt before your eyes? 35 "You have been shown this in order to know that "the LORD is God' and there is no one like him. 36 You have been made to hear his voice from heaven so you may be instructed. And he showed you his great fire here on earth, and you heard his voice from the middle of that fire. 37 Moreover, he loved your ancestors, chose their descendants after them, and brought you out of Egypt, accompanied by his presence and great power, 38 in order to drive out nations that are stronger and more powerful than you, to bring you into this land, and to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is today. 39 "May you acknowledge and take to heart this day that the LORD is God in the heavens above and over the earth below there is no other God. 40 May you observe his statutes and keep his commands that I'm giving you today, so that life may go well for you and for your descendants after you. That way, you'll live a long life in the land that the LORD your God is about to give you permanently."