You shall not add … nor take from: the Law is regarded as a complete and perfect whole, and the Israelites are not to add any more rules to it nor take any out. So Good News Translation has “Do not add anything to what I command you, and do not take anything away.”

The Law is here called the word (which I command you). But the Hebrew word for word can have the more general sense of “matter,” “subject,” or even “thing,” and that is how New Revised Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, New International Version, and Biblia Dios Habla Hoy take it here: “You shall not add anything to what I am commanding you….”

Which I command you: see “which I teach you” in verse 1.

Commandments translates the word most commonly used for the laws of Israel; it appears forty-three times in this book.

The LORD your God: see 1.10.

It is possible to reorder the clauses of this verse as follows:

• I have told you everything that Yahweh your [or, our] God has commanded you to do. Don’t add anything or take anything away.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .