You complained among yourselves privately and said, “Because the Lord hates us he brought us from Egypt to deliver us over to the Amorites so they could destroy us!

The Lord your God is about to go ahead of you; he will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt

But the Lord told me: “Tell them this: ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you and you will be defeated by your enemies.’”

Then we turned and set out toward the desert land on the way to the Red Sea just as the Lord told me to do, detouring around Mount Seir for a long time.

The Lord said to me, “Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession.”

However, you did not approach the land of the Ammonites, the Wadi Jabbok, the cities of the hill country, or any place else forbidden by the Lord our God.

So the Lord our God did indeed give over to us King Og of Bashan and his whole army and we struck them down until not a single survivor was left.

Look! I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord my God told me to do, so that you might carry them out in the land you are about to enter and possess.

Then the Lord spoke to you from the middle of the fire; you heard speech but you could not see anything – only a voice was heard.

Moreover, at that same time the Lord commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to keep in the land which you are about to enter and possess.

Be very careful, then, because you saw no form at the time the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire.

You, however, the Lord has selected and brought from Egypt, that iron-smelting furnace, to be his special people as you are today.

After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him,

In your distress when all these things happen to you in the latter days, if you return to the Lord your God and obey him

(for he is a merciful God), he will not let you down or destroy you, for he cannot forget the covenant with your ancestors that he confirmed by oath to them.

Today realize and carefully consider that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below – there is no other!

He did not make this covenant with our ancestors but with us, we who are here today, all of us living now.

But now, why should we die, because this intense fire will consume us! If we keep hearing the voice of the Lord our God we will die!

Walk just as he has commanded you so that you may live, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land you are going to possess.

Now these are the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed