The Covenant in Moab
1 These are the words of the covenant which the Lordcommanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which He made with them at Horeb (Sinai).
2 Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen all that the Lorddid before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land;
3 the great trials [of Pharaoh] which your eyes have seen, the signs and those great wonders.
4 Yet to this day the Lordhas not given you a heartandmind to understand, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.
5 I have led you in the wilderness forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet.
6 You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, so that you might know that I am the Lordyour God [on whom you must depend].
7 When you reached this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us in battle, but we defeated them;
8 and we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
9 So keep the words of this covenant and obey them, so that you may prosperandbe successful in everything that you do.
10 “All of you stand today before the Lordyour God–your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers,evenall the men of Israel,
11 your little ones, your wives, and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your camps, fromthe one who chopsandgathers your firewood to the one who draws your water–
12 so that you may enter into the covenant of the Lordyour God, and into His oathandagreement which the Lordyour God is making with you today,
13 so that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
14 “It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath,
15 but with those [future Israelites] who are not here with us today, as well as with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lordour God
16 (for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the nations along the way;
17 and you have seen their detestable acts and their [repulsive] idols of wood and stone, [lifeless images] of silver and gold, whichthey hadwith them),
18 so that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lordour God, to go and serve the [false] gods of these nations; so that there will not be among you a root [of idolatry] bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood (bitterness).
19 It will happen that when he (a renegade) hears the words of this oath, and heimagines himself as blessed, saying, ‘I will have peaceandsafety even though I walk within the stubbornness of my heart [rejecting God and His law], in order that the wateredlanddwindles away along with the dry [destroying everything],’
20 the Lordwill not be willing to forgive him, but then the anger of the Lordand Hisjealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him; the Lordwill blot out his name from under heaven.
21 Then the Lordwill single him out for disaster from all the tribes of Israel [making an example of him], according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law.
22 Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the Lordhas afflicted it, will say,
23 ‘The whole land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it; it is like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lordoverthrew in His anger and wrath.’
24 All the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lorddone this thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’
25 Thenpeoplewill say, ‘It is because they abandoned (broke) 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.
26 ~‘For they went and served other gods and worshiped them, [false] gods whom they have not known and whom He had not allotted (given) to them.
27 ~‘So the anger of the Lordburned against this land, bringing on it every curse that is written in this book;
28 and the Lorduprooted them from their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’
29 “The secret things belong to the Lordour God, but the things which are revealedanddisclosed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may do all of the words of this law.