1    ^noteThese are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant which he made with them on Horeb.

Concluding charge of Moses

2    ^noteMoses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: ‘You have seen with your own eyes all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants, 3   and to the whole land, the great challenge which you yourselves witnessed, 4   those great signs and portents, but to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to learn, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. 5   I led you for forty years in the wilderness; your clothes did not wear out on you, nor did your sandals wear out and fall off your feet; 6   you ate no bread and drank no wine or strong drink, in order that you might learn that I am the Lord your God. 7   You came to this place where Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came to attack us, and we defeated them. 8   We took their land and gave it as patrimony to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh. 9   You shall observe the provisions of this covenant and keep them so that you may be successful in all you do.

10   ‘You all stand here today before the Lord your God, tribal chiefs, ^note elders, 11   and officers, all the men of Israel, with your dependants, your wives, the aliens who live in your camp—all of them, from those who 12   chop wood to those who draw water—and you are ready to accept the oath and enter into the covenant which the Lord your God is making with you today. 13   The covenant is to constitute you his people this day, and he will be your God, as he promised you and as he swore to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 14   It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath, 15   but with all those who stand here with us today before the Lord our God and also with those who are not here with us today. 16   For you know how we lived in Egypt and how we and you, 17   as we passed through the nations, saw their loathsome idols and the false gods they had, the gods of wood and stone, of silver and gold. 18   If there should be among you a man or woman, family or tribe, who is moved today to turn from the Lord our God and to go worshipping the gods of those nations—if there is among you such a root from which springs gall and wormwood, 19   then when he hears the terms of this oath, he may inwardly flatter himself and think, “All will be well with me even if I follow the promptings of my stubborn heart”; but this will bring everything to ruin. ^note 20   The Lord will not be willing to forgive him; for then his anger and resentment will overwhelm this man, and the denunciations prescribed in this book will fall heavily on him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21   The Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster to fall upon him, according to the oath required by the covenant and prescribed in this book of the law.

22   ‘The next generation, your sons who follow you and the foreigners

Concluding charge of Moses who come from distant countries, will see the plagues of this land and the ulcers which the Lord has brought upon its people, 23   the whole land burnt up with brimstone and salt, so that it cannot be sown, or yield herb or green plant. It will be as desolate as were Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, when the Lord overthrew them in his anger and rage. 24   Then they, and all the nations with them, will ask, “Why has the Lord so afflicted this land? Why has there been this great outburst of wrath?” 25   The answer will be: “Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord the God of their fathers which he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. 26   They began to worship other gods and to bow down to them, gods whom they had not known and whom the Lord had not assigned to them. 27   The anger of the Lord was roused against that land, so that he brought upon it all the maledictions written in this book. 28   The Lord uprooted them from their soil in anger, in wrath and great fury, and banished them to another land, where they are to this day.”

29   ‘There are things hidden, and they belong to the Lord our God, but what is revealed belongs to us and our children for ever; it is for us to observe all that is prescribed in this law.

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