Deuteronomy 29:2–29

²Now Moses called all Israel and said to them: ^b“You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land—^3cthe great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. ⁴Yet ^dthe Lord has not given you a heart to ¹perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day. ^5eAnd I have led you forty years in the wilderness. ^fYour clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet. ^6gYou have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or similar drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. ⁷And when you came to this place, ^hSihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we conquered them. ⁸We took their land and ⁱgave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh. ⁹Therefore ^jkeep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may ^kprosper in all that you do.

¹⁰“All of you stand today before the Lord your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, ¹¹your little ones and your wives—also the stranger who is in your camp, from ^lthe one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water—¹²that you may enter into covenant with the Lord your God, and ^minto His oath, which the Lord your God makes with you today, ¹³that He may ⁿestablish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, ^ojust as He has spoken to you, and ^pjust as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴“I make this covenant and this oath, ^qnot with you alone, ¹⁵but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, ^ras well as with him who is not here with us today ¹⁶(for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by, ¹⁷and you saw their ²abominations and their idols which were among them—wood and stone and silver and gold); ¹⁸so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, ^swhose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, ^tand that there may not be among you a root bearing ^ubitterness or wormwood; ¹⁹and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I ³follow the ^vdictates of my heart’—^was though the drunkard could be included with the sober.

^20x“The Lord would not spare him; for then ^ythe anger of the Lord and ^zHis jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the Lord ^awould blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹And the Lord ^bwould separate him from all the tribes of Israel for adversity, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the ^cLaw, ²²so that the coming generation of your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, would say, when they ^dsee the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord has laid on it:

²³‘The whole land is brimstone, ^esalt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, ^flike the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath.’ ²⁴All nations would say, ^g‘Why has the Lord done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’ ²⁵Then people would say: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; ²⁶for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them. ²⁷Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against this land, ^hto bring on it every curse that is written in this book. ²⁸And the Lord ⁱuprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’

²⁹“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.