¹⁷ But if ^(A)your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them,

¹² Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from ^(A)the living God.

⁴ and ^(A)will turn away from listening to the truth and ^(B)wander off into myths.

²⁵ See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For ^(A)if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

^19 (A)And this is the judgment: ^(B)the light has come into the world, and ^(C)people loved the darkness rather than the light because ^(D)their works were evil. ^20 (E)For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, ^(F)lest his works should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever ^(G)does what is true ^(H)comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

² from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ^(A)“You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.

²⁵ But if you still do wickedly, ^(A)you shall be swept away, ^(B)both you and your king.”

¹⁸ Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you ^(A)a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, ¹⁹ one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. ²⁰ The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather ^(B)the anger of the Lord and ^(C)his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord ^(D)will blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹ And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. ²² And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, ^(E)will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick— ²³ the whole land burned out with brimstone and ^(F)salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, ^(G)an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, ^(H)Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— ²⁴ all the nations ^(I)will say, ^(J)‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ ²⁵ Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned 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 and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. ²⁷ Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, ^(K)bringing upon it all the curses written in this book, ²⁸ and the Lord ^(L)uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and ^(M)cast them into another land, as they are this day.’