¹⁷ But if your heart turns away and you do not hear but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them,

¹² Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

⁴ and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

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

¹⁹ And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.^{(A) 20} For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.^{(B) 21} But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”^[a](C)

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

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

¹⁸ It may be that there is among you a man or woman or a family or tribe whose heart is already turning away from the Lord our God to serve the gods of those nations. It may be that there is among you a root sprouting poisonous and bitter growth.^{(A) 19} All who hear the words of this oath and bless themselves, thinking in their hearts, ‘We are safe even though we go our own stubborn ways’ (thus sweeping away the moist with the dry)^[a]— ²⁰ the Lord will be unwilling to pardon them, for then the Lord’s anger and passion will smoke against them. All the curses written in this book will descend on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven.^{(B) 21} The Lord will single them 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.^{(C) 22} The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who comes from a distant country, will see the devastation of that land and the afflictions with which the Lord has afflicted it^(D)— ²³ all its soil burned out by sulfur and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to support any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his fierce anger^(E)— ²⁴ they and indeed all the nations will wonder, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused this great display of anger?’^{(F) 25} They will conclude, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. ²⁶ They turned and served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them; ²⁷ so the anger of the Lord was kindled against that land, bringing on it every curse written in this book. ²⁸ The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, fury, and great wrath and cast them into another land, as is now the case.’^(G)