Deuteronomy 5:32

5:32 Be careful, therefore, to do exactly what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn right or left!

Deuteronomy 11:16

Exhortation to Instruction and Obedience

11:16 Make sure you do not turn away to serve and worship other gods! ¹ 

Deuteronomy 11:26-28

Anticipation of a Blessing and Cursing Ceremony

11:26 Take note – I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ²  11:27 the blessing if you take to heart ³  the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, 11:28 and the curse if you pay no attention ⁴  to his ⁵  commandments and turn from the way I am setting before ⁶  you today to pursue ⁷  other gods you have not known.

Joshua 23:6

23:6 Be very strong! Carefully obey ⁸  all that is written in the law scroll of Moses so you won’t swerve from it to the right or the left,

Joshua 23:2

23:2 So Joshua summoned all Israel, including the elders, rulers, judges, and leaders, and told them: “I am very old.

Joshua 22:2

22:2 and told them: “You have carried out all the instructions of Moses the Lord’s servant, and you have obeyed all I have told you. ⁹ 

Proverbs 4:26-27

4:26 Make the path for your feet ¹⁰  level, ¹¹ 

so that ¹²  all your ways may be established. ¹³ 

4:27 Do not turn ¹⁴  to the right or to the left;

turn yourself ¹⁵  away from evil. ¹⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “Watch yourselves lest your heart turns and you turn aside and serve other gods and bow down to them.”

² sn A blessing and a curse. Every extant treaty text of the late Bronze Age attests to a section known as the “blessings and curses,” the former for covenant loyalty and the latter for covenant breach. Blessings were promised rewards for obedience; curses were threatened judgments for disobedience. In the Book of Deuteronomy these are fully developed in 27:1–28:68. Here Moses adumbrates the whole by way of anticipation.

³ tn Heb “listen to,” that is, obey.

⁴ tn Heb “do not listen to,” that is, do not obey.

⁵ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁶ tn Heb “am commanding” (so NASB, NRSV).

⁷ tn Heb “walk after”; NIV “by following”; NLT “by worshiping.” This is a violation of the first commandment, the most serious of the covenant violations (Deut 5:6-7).

⁸ tn Heb “Be strong so you can be careful to do.”

⁹ tn Heb “You have kept all which Moses, the Lord’s servant, commanded you, and you have listened to my voice, to all which I commanded you.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “path of your foot.”

¹¹ sn The verb is a denominative Piel from the word פֶּלֶס (peles), “balance; scale.” In addition to telling the disciple to keep focused on a righteous life, the sage tells him to keep his path level, which is figurative for living the righteous life.

¹² tn The vav prefixed to the beginning of this dependent clause denotes purpose/result following the preceding imperative.

¹³ tn The Niphal jussive from כּוּן (cun, “to be fixed; to be established; to be steadfast”) continues the idiom of walking and ways for the moral sense in life.

¹⁴ sn The two verbs in this verse are from different roots, but nonetheless share the same semantic domain. The first verb is תֵּט (tet), a jussive from נָטָה (natah), which means “to turn aside” (Hiphil); the second verb is the Hiphil imperative of סוּר (sur), which means “to cause to turn to the side” (Hiphil). The disciple is not to leave the path of righteousness; but to stay on the path he must leave evil.

¹⁵ tn Heb “your foot” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV). The term רַגְלְךָ (raglÿkha, “your foot”) is a synecdoche of part (= foot) for the whole person (= “yourself”).

¹⁶ tc The LXX adds, “For the way of the right hand God knows, but those of the left hand are distorted; and he himself will make straight your paths and guide your goings in peace.” The ideas presented here are not out of harmony with Proverbs, but the section clearly shows an expansion by the translator. For a brief discussion of whether this addition is Jewish or early Christian, see C. H. Toy, Proverbs (ICC), 99.