Deuteronomy 29

1 These are the words of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant he made with them at Horeb. [a] 2 And Moses called all the sons of Israel and said to them, 2 “You have seen everything the Lord did in the land of Egypt in front of you, to Pharaoh and his servants and all his land — 3 the great trials your own eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 And still the Lord God has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day. 5 And he led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes did not wear out, and your sandals were not worn off your feet. 6 You ate no bread, you drank no wine or strong drink — so that you would know that I am the Lord your God. 7 And you came as far as this place; and Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to meet us in war, and we struck them down. 8 And we took their land, and I gave it as an inheritance to Reuben and Gad and to the half tribe of Manasseh. 9 And you are to be careful to do all the words of this covenant, so that you may understand everything you are to do.

10 You all stand today before the Lord your God — the heads of your tribes, and your elders, and your judges, and your officers, every man of Israel, 11 your wives, and your children, and the newcomer who is in the middle of your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water — [b] 12 so that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, and into his curses, all that the Lord your God is setting before you today; 13 so that he may make you a people for himself, and he will be your God, as he told you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. 14 And I am not setting this covenant and this curse before you alone, 15 but before those who are here with us today before the Lord your God, and before those who are not here with us today.

16 For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the middle of the nations you came through. 17 And you saw their detestable things and their idols — wood and stone, silver and gold — that are among them. 18 So let there not be among you a man, or a woman, or a family, or a tribe whose heart has turned away from the Lord your God to go and serve the gods of these nations; let there not be in you a root growing up with poison and bitterness. [c] 19 And if anyone hears the words of this curse and flatters himself in his heart, saying, ‘Let good come to me, for I will walk in the wandering of my own heart’ — so that the sinner does not destroy the innocent along with him — [d] 20 God will certainly not be willing to pardon him. The anger of the Lord and his jealousy will blaze out against that man, and all the curses of this covenant that are written in this book will fasten on him, and the Lord will wipe his name out from under heaven. 21 And the Lord will set that man apart for harm out of all the children of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in the book of this law.

22 And another generation will say — your own sons who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a distant land — when they see the plagues of that land and its diseases, which the Lord has sent on it, 23 sulfur and burning salt, the whole land not sown, nothing green springing up or coming up on it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his fury and his anger — 24 and all the nations will say: Why has the Lord done this to this land? What is this great heat of anger? 25 And they will say: Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, the things he laid on their fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt; 26 and they went and served other gods and bowed down to them — gods they did not know, and which he had not assigned to them. 27 And the Lord was very angry with that land, and brought on it all the curses that are written in the book of this law. 28 And the Lord pulled them off their land in anger and fury and very great rage, and threw them out into another land, as it is now.

29 The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that have been uncovered belong to us and to our children forever — to do all the words of this law.”