Deuteronomy 29

The Covenant in Moab

112These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the 3covenant which He had made with them at Horeb.

24And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land; 35the great trials which your eyes have seen, those great signs and wonders. 4Yet to this day 6the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear. 5I have led you forty years in the wilderness; 7your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. 68You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God. 79When you 10reached this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us for battle, but we 11defeated them; 8and we took their land and 12gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites. 913So keep the words of this covenant to do them, 14that you may prosper in all that you do.

10“You stand today, all of you, before the Lord your God: your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers, even all the men of Israel, 11your little ones, your wives, and the alien who is within your camps, from 15the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, 12that you may enter into the covenant with the Lord your God, and into His oath which the Lord your God is making with you today, 13in order that He may establish you today as His people and that 16He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

14“Now not with you alone am I 17making this covenant and this oath, 1518but both with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here today 16(for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed; 17moreover, you have seen their abominations and their idols of 19wood, stone, silver, and gold, which they had with them); 1820so that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; that there will not be among you 21a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood. 19It shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will 22boast, saying, ‘I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order 23to destroy the watered land with the dry.’ 20The Lord shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and 24His jealousy will 2526burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will 27rest on him, and the Lord will 28blot out his name from under heaven. 21Then the Lord will single him out for 29adversity from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant 30which are written in this book of the law.

22“Now the generation to come, your sons who rise up after you and 31the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of the land and the diseases with which the Lord has 32afflicted it, will say, 23‘All its land is 33brimstone and salt, 34a burning waste, 35unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of 36Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath.’ 24All the nations will say, ‘37Why has the Lord done thus to this land? Why this great 38outburst of anger?’ 25Then men will say, ‘39Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they have not known and whom He had not 40allotted to them. 27Therefore, the anger of the Lord burned against that land, 41to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book; 28and 42the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’

29“43The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but 44the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.