(I was standing between the Lord and you at that time to reveal to you the message ¹  of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain.) He said:

whenever a prophet speaks in my ¹  name and the prediction ²  is not fulfilled, ³  then I have ⁴  not spoken it; ⁵  the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab as the Lord had said.

But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ¹  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ²  them.

The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, written by the very finger ¹  of God, and on them was everything ²  he ³  said to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire at the time of that assembly.

“But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized ¹  him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.

Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to ¹  you.

Pay careful attention to all these things I am commanding you so that it may always go well with you and your children after you when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

However, through all this you did not have confidence in the Lord your God,

You ¹  stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he ²  said to me, “Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands. ³  Then they will learn to revere me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children.”

So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. ¹  He did this to teach you ²  that humankind ³  cannot live by bread ⁴  alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. ⁵ 

the Lord said to me,

Then the Levitical priests ¹  will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, ²  and to decide ³  every judicial verdict ⁴ )

Then they took ¹  some of the produce of the land and carried it back down to us. They also brought a report to us, saying, “The land that the Lord our God is about to give us is good.”

You have been rebelling against him ¹  from the very first day I knew you!

So on that day Moses wrote down this song and taught it to the Israelites,

At the testimony of two or three witnesses they must be executed. They cannot be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

My teaching will drop like the rain, my sayings will drip like the dew, ¹  as rain drops upon the grass, and showers upon new growth.

It is not because of your righteousness, or even your inner uprightness, ¹  that you have come here to possess their land. Instead, because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out ahead of you in order to confirm the promise he ²  made on oath to your ancestors, ³  to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you.