Deuteronomy 29:12-21

12You are standing here to agree to the covenant that the Lord your God is making with you today. You must promise to obey it.

13By this covenant, the Lord says again today that you are his people and he is your God. He has already made that promise to you and to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

14The Lord our God is making this strong covenant with you people who are standing here with him today. But it is not only with you. He also makes this covenant with those people who are not here today.

16You remember how we lived when we were in Egypt. You remember how we travelled through other countries as we came here.

17You saw the useless gods that people of other nations worship. They worship idols that they make from wood, stone, silver and gold.

18So be very careful that you do not turn away from the Lord our God to worship the gods of those nations. No man, woman, clan or tribe among you must ever want to do that. That would be like the root of a plant that gives fruits which are full of poison.

19Nobody who hears the message of this covenant should think that they can go against it. Someone might say to himself, ‘I do not have to obey this covenant. I will be safe, whatever happens. God will still bless me.’ A person who thinks like that will bring trouble on everyone and on everything.

20The Lord will never forgive that person. He will be very angry with him. The Lord will punish him in all the terrible ways that are written in this book. The Lord will destroy him completely so that his family name comes to an end.

21The Lord will make that person separate from all the Israelite tribes and he will punish him very much. All the troubles that the Lord promises in this covenant will happen to that person, as this book of God's Law says.