Continued from yesterday. Moses told the people of Israel: "The Lord may permit other nations to get away with this, but not you. The Lord has rescued you from prison - Egypt - to be His special people, His own inheritance; this is what you are today . . . Beware lest you break the contract the Lord your God has made with you! You will break it if you make any idols, for the Lord your God has utterly forbidden this. He is a devouring fire, a jealous God. In the future, when your children and grandchildren are born and you have been in the land a long time, and you have defiled yourselves by making idols, and the Lord your God is very angry because of your sin, heaven and earth are witnesses that you shall be quickly destroyed from the land.

   "Soon, now, you will cross the Jordan River and conquer that land. But your days there will be brief; you will then be utterly destroyed. Jehovah will scatter you among the nations, and you will be but few in number. There, far away, you will worship idols made from wood and stone, idols that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But you will also begin to search again for Jehovah your God, and you shall find Him when you search for Him with all your hearts and souls. When those bitter days have come upon you in the latter times, you will finally return to the Lord your God and listen to what He tells you. For the Lord your God is merciful - He will not abandon you nor destroy you nor forget the promises He has made to your ancestors.

   "In all history, going back to the time when God created man upon the earth, search from one end of the heavens to the other to see if you can find anything like this: An entire nation heard the voice of God speaking to it from fire, as you did, and lived! Where else will you ever find another example of God's removing a nation from its slavery by sending terrible plagues, mighty miracles, war, and terror? Yet that is what the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, right before your very eyes. He did these things so you would realize that Jehovah is God, and that there is no one else like Him. He let you hear His voice instructing you from heaven, and He let you see His great pillar of fire upon the earth; you even heard His words from the center of the fire." To be continued.

Taken from Deuteronomy 4, The Living Bible. For free Lifescope book,
write to Box 1575, Carlsbad, NM 88221. Please send $1.00 for postage and handling.