THESE
are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make
with the children of Israel
in the land of Moab,
beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
2 And
Moses called unto all Israel,
and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did
before your eyes in the land of Egypt
unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;
3 The
great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the
signs, and those great miracles:
4 Yet the
LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes
to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
5 And I
have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon
you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.
6 Ye have
not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know
that I am the LORD your God.
7 And
when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og
the king of Bashan, came out
against us unto battle, and we smote them:
8 And we
took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites,
and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of
Manasseh.
9 Keep
therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that
ye may prosper in all that ye do.
10 Ye
stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes,
your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11 Your
little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the
hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
12 That
thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy
God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh
with thee this day:
13 That
he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may
be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy
fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14 Neither
with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15 But
with him that standeth here with us this day
before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with
us this day:
16 (For
ye know how we have dwelt in the land
of Egypt; and how we came through
the nations which ye passed by;
17 And
ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and
gold, which were among them:)
18 Lest
there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and
serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
19 And
it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this
curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I
walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
20 The
LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall
smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall
lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21 And
the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel,
according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of
the law:
22 So
that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and
the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the
plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
23 And
that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth
therein, like the overthrow of Sodom,
and Gomorrah, Admah,
and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger,
and in his wrath:
24 Even
all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done
thus unto this land? what meaneth
the heat of this great anger?
25 Then
men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant
of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them
forth out of the land of Egypt:
26 For
they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not,
and whom he had not given unto them:
27 And
the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the
curses that are written in this book:
28 And
the LORD rooted them out of 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 unto the LORD our God: but those things which
are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we
may do all the words of this law.