Follow the Terms of the Covenant

29 These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded me to make with the people of Israel in Moab. The terms were added to the covenant he had made with them at Mount Horeb.

2I sent for all of the Israelites. Here is what I said to them.

With your own eyes you have seen everything the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh. You have seen what he did to all of Pharaoh’s officials and to his whole land. 3With your own eyes you saw how the Lord really made them suffer. You saw his miraculous signs and great wonders.

4But to this very day the Lord hasn’t given you a mind that understands. He hasn’t given you eyes that see. He hasn’t given you ears that hear.

5He led you through the desert for 40 years. During that time your clothes didn’t wear out. The sandals on your feet didn’t wear out either. 6You didn’t eat any bread. You didn’t drink any kind of wine. The Lord did all of those things because he wanted you to know that he is the Lord your God.

7When we got here, Sihon and Og came out to fight against us. Sihon was the king of Heshbon. And Og was the king of Bashan. But we won the battle over them. 8We took their land. We gave it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh as their share.

9Be careful to obey the terms of this covenant. Then you will have success in everything you do.

10Today all of you are standing here in the sight of the Lord your God. Your leaders and chief men are here. Your elders and officials are here. So are all of the other men of Israel. 11Your children and wives are here with you too. So are the outsiders who are living in your camps. They chop your wood and carry your water.

12All of you are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God. He is making the covenant with you today. He’s sealing it with an oath. 13Today he wants to show you that you are his people and that he is your God. That’s what he promised with an oath to your fathers. He promised it to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

14I’m making this covenant. I’m sealing it with an oath. I’m not making it only with you 15who are standing here with us today in the sight of the Lord our God. I’m also making it with those who aren’t here today.

16You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt. You also know how we passed through other countries on the way here. 17You saw the statues of their gods that were made out of wood, stone, silver and gold. The Lord hates those statues.

18Make sure there isn’t a man or woman among your families or tribes who turns away from the Lord our God. No one must worship the gods of those nations. Make sure that kind of worship doesn’t spread like bitter poison through your whole community.

19Some people who worship those gods will hear the oath that seals the covenant I’m making. They think they can escape trouble by saying to themselves, “We’ll be safe, even though we’re stubborn and go our own way.” But trouble will come on them everywhere in the land.

20The Lord will never be willing to forgive those people. His burning anger will blaze out against them. All of the curses I’ve written down in this scroll will fall on them. And the Lord will wipe out their names from the earth. 21He will find those people in all of the tribes of Israel and give them nothing but trouble. That will be in keeping with all of the curses of the covenant. They are written down in this Scroll of the Law.

22Even your children’s children will see the troubles that have fallen on the land. They’ll see the sicknesses the Lord has brought on it. People who come from countries far away will also see those things.

23The whole land will be burned up. Nothing but salt and sulfur will be left. Nothing will be planted there. Nothing will grow there. In fact, nothing will even start to grow there. The land will be like Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim after they were destroyed. The Lord wiped out those cities because he was very angry.

24All of the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done this to the land? What could have made him so very angry?”

25And they will hear the answer, “It’s because the people who are living there have broken the covenant of the Lord. He’s the God of their parents. He made that covenant with them when he brought them out of Egypt. 26They went off and worshiped other gods. They bowed down to them. They hadn’t known anything about those gods before. The Lord hadn’t given those gods to them.

27“So the Lord’s anger burned against the land. He brought on it all of the curses that are written down in this scroll. 28The Lord’s anger blazed out against his people. So he pulled them up out of their land. He threw them into another land. And that’s where they are now.”

29The Lord our God keeps certain things hidden. But he makes other things known to us and our children forever. He does it so we can obey all of the words of this law.