27. The Lord will scatter you among the other nations. Only a few of you will be left alive. And those few will be in other nations where the Lord will send you.
28. There you will worship gods made by men. They will be made of wood and stone. They cannot see, hear, eat or smell.
29. But even there you can look for the Lord your God. And you will find him if you look. But you must look for him with your whole being.
30. It will be hard when all these things happen to you. But after that you will come back to the Lord your God. You will obey him.
31. The Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you. He will not forget the agreement he made with your ancestors. He made that agreement sure with his strong promise.
32. Nothing like this has ever happened before! Look at the past, long before you were even born. Go all the way back to when God made man on the earth. Look from one end of heaven to the other. Nothing like this has ever been heard of!
33. No other people have ever heard God speak from a fire and still lived. But you have.
34. No other god has ever taken for himself one nation out of another. But the Lord your God did this for you in Egypt. He did it right before your own eyes. He did it with tests, signs, miracles, war and great sights. He did it by his great power and strength.
35. He showed you things so you would know that the Lord is God. There is no other God besides him.
36. He spoke to you from heaven to teach you. He showed you his great fire on earth. And you heard him speak from the fire.
37. The Lord loved your ancestors. That is why he chose you, their descendants. He brought you out of Egypt himself by his great strength.
38. He forced nations out of their land ahead of you. And these nations were bigger and stronger than you were. But the Lord brought you into their land and gave it to you to own. And this land is yours today.
39. Know and believe today that the Lord is God. He is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other god!
40. Obey his laws and commands, which I am giving you today. Obey them so that things will go well for you and your children. Then you will live a long time in this land. The Lord your God is giving it to you forever.
41. Moses chose three cities east of the Jordan River.