The Results of Disobedience

29:16 “(For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we crossed through the nations as we traveled. 29:17 You have seen their detestable things16 and idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold.)17 29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit.18 29:19 When such a person19 hears the words of this oath he secretly20 blesses himself21 and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.”22 This will destroy23 the watered ground with the parched.24 29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger25 will rage26 against that man; all the curses27 written in this scroll will fall upon him28 and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory.29 29:21 The Lord will single him out30 for judgment31 from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law. 29:22 The generation to come—your descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who will come from distant places—will see32 the afflictions of that land and the illnesses that the Lord has brought on it. 29:23 The whole land will be covered with brimstone, salt, and burning debris; it will not be planted nor will it sprout or produce grass. It will resemble the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger.33 29:24 Then all the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger34 all about?” 29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship.35 29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses36 written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.” 29:29 Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants37 forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law.