Week 199 · about 45 minutes
Deuteronomy 4
Deuteronomy 4 · Memory verse Deuteronomy 4:29
Get the free weekly Sunday school and bedtime printable pack
For a parent or teacher. Children do not make accounts here. The pack is a week of printables, not a child profile.
Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Deuteronomy 4), the matching word search and answer key (Deuteronomy 4 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a key
Hold a key. Read Deuteronomy 4 in about four minutes, stopping at Deuteronomy 4:29: “But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Deuteronomy 4?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Deuteronomy 4 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances, which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you.” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “When you shall father children, and children’s children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a carved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight, to provoke him to anger;” Deuteronomy 4 opens with these words: “Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances, which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the…” The line to keep is Deuteronomy 4:29: “But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Carry the word “seek” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Deuteronomy 4:29: “But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Deuteronomy 4? Then try this: Read “But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all…” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Deuteronomy 4. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Deuteronomy 4:29. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Deuteronomy 4 and write Deuteronomy 4:29 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Deuteronomy 4:29
“But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Deuteronomy 4. Help us remember Deuteronomy 4:29 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.