The Altar on Mount Ebal

27 Moses and the elders of Israel gave commands to the people. They said, “Obey all the commands we’re giving you today. ² You will go across the Jordan River. You will enter the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you do, set up some large stones. Put a coat of plaster on them. ³ Write all the words of this law on them. Do it when you have crossed over into the land the Lord your God is giving you. It’s a land that has plenty of milk and honey. The Lord is the God of your people of long ago. He promised you that you would enter the land. ⁴ After you have gone across the Jordan, set up those stones on Mount Ebal. Put a coat of plaster on them. We’re commanding you today to do that. ⁵ Build an altar there to honor the Lord your God. Make it out of stones. Don’t use any iron tool on them. ⁶ Use stones you find in the fields to build his altar. Then offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. ⁷ Sacrifice friendship offerings there. Eat them and be filled with joy in the sight of the Lord your God. ⁸ You must write all the words of this law on the stones you have set up. Write the words very clearly.”

Curses for Not Obeying the Lord

⁹ Then Moses and the priests, who are Levites, spoke to all the Israelites. They said, “Israel, be quiet! Listen! You have now become the people of the Lord your God. ¹⁰ Obey him. Obey his commands and rules that we’re giving you today.”

¹¹ Here are the commands Moses gave the people that same day.

¹² You will go across the Jordan River. When you do, six tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people. Those tribes are Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin. ¹³ The other six tribes will stand on Mount Ebal to announce some curses. Those tribes are Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali.

¹⁴ The Levites will speak to all the Israelites in a loud voice. The Levites will say,

¹⁵ “May anyone who makes a statue of a god and sets it up in secret be under the Lord’s curse. That statue is made by a skilled worker. And the Lord hates it.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

¹⁶ “May anyone who brings shame on their father or mother be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

¹⁷ “May anyone who moves their neighbor’s boundary stone be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

¹⁸ “May anyone who leads blind people down the wrong road be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

¹⁹ “May anyone who treats unfairly outsiders, widows, and children whose fathers have died be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

²⁰ “May anyone who sleeps with his stepmother be under the Lord’s curse. That man brings shame on his father by doing that.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

²¹ “May anyone who has sex with animals be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

²² “May anyone who sleeps with his sister be under the Lord’s curse. It doesn’t matter whether she is his full sister or his half sister.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

²³ “May anyone who sleeps with his mother-in-law be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

²⁴ “May anyone who kills their neighbor secretly be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

²⁵ “May anyone who accepts money to kill someone who isn’t guilty of doing anything wrong be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

²⁶ “May anyone who doesn’t honor the words of this law by obeying them be under the Lord’s curse.”

Then all the people will say, “Amen!”

Blessings for Obeying the Lord

28 Make sure you obey the Lord your God completely. Be careful to obey all his commands. I’m giving them to you today. If you do these things, the Lord will honor you more than all the other nations on earth. ² If you obey the Lord your God, here are the blessings that will come to you and remain with you.

³ You will be blessed in the cities. You will be blessed out in the country.

⁴ Your children will be blessed. Your crops will be blessed. The young animals among your livestock will be blessed. That includes your calves and lambs.

⁵ Your baskets and bread pans will be blessed.

⁶ You will be blessed no matter where you go.

⁷ Enemies will rise up against you. But the Lord will help you win the battle over them. They will come at you from one direction. But they’ll run away from you in every direction.

⁸ The Lord your God will bless your barns with plenty of grain and other food. He will bless everything you do. He’ll bless you in the land he’s giving you.

⁹ The Lord your God will make you his holy people. He will set you apart for himself. He promised to do this. He promised to do it if you would keep his commands and live exactly as he wants you to live. ¹⁰ All the nations on earth will see that you belong to the Lord. And they will be afraid of you. ¹¹ The Lord will give you more than you need. You will have many children. Your livestock will have many little ones. Your crops will do very well. All of that will happen in the land he promised to give you. He promised this to your people of long ago.

¹² The Lord will open up the heavens. That’s where he stores his riches. He will send rain on your land at just the right time. He’ll bless everything you do. You will lend money to many nations. But you won’t have to borrow from any of them. ¹³ The Lord your God will make you leaders, not followers. Pay attention to his commands that I’m giving you today. Be careful to obey them. Then you will always be on top. You will never be on the bottom. ¹⁴ Don’t turn away from any of the commands I’m giving you today. Don’t turn to the right or the left. Don’t follow other gods. Don’t worship them.

Curses for Not Obeying the Lord

¹⁵ But suppose you don’t obey the Lord your God. And you aren’t careful to obey all his commands and rules I’m giving you today. Then he will send curses on you. They’ll catch up with you. Here are those curses.

¹⁶ You will be cursed in the cities. You will be cursed out in the country.

¹⁷ Your baskets and bread pans will be cursed.

¹⁸ Your children will be cursed. Your crops will be cursed. Your calves and lambs will be cursed.

¹⁹ You will be cursed no matter where you go.

²⁰ The Lord will send curses on you. You won’t know what’s going on. In everything you do, he will be angry with you. You will be destroyed suddenly and completely. This will happen because you did an evil thing when you deserted the Lord. ²¹ He will send all kinds of sicknesses on you. He’ll send them until he has destroyed you. He’ll remove you from the land you are entering to take as your own. ²² The Lord will make you sick and very weak. He will strike you with fever and swelling. He’ll send burning heat. There won’t be any rain. The hot winds will completely dry up your crops. All those things will happen until you die. ²³ The sky above you will be like bronze. The ground beneath you will be like iron. ²⁴ The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder. It will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

²⁵ The Lord will help your enemies win the battle over you. You will come at them from one direction. But you will run away from them in every direction. All the kingdoms on earth will be completely shocked when they see you. ²⁶ Birds and wild animals will eat up your dead bodies. There won’t be anyone left to scare them away. ²⁷ The Lord will send boils on you, just like the ones he sent on the Egyptians. You will have growths in your bodies and boils on your skin. You will itch all over. No one will be able to heal you. ²⁸ The Lord will make you lose your mind. He will make you blind. You won’t know what’s going on. ²⁹ Even at noon you will have to feel your way around like a blind person in the dark. You won’t have success in anything you do. Day after day you will be robbed and treated badly. No one will be able to save you.

³⁰ You and a woman will promise to marry each other. But another man will take her and rape her. You will build a house. But you won’t live in it. You will plant a vineyard. But you won’t eat a single grape from it. ³¹ Your ox will be killed right in front of your eyes. But you won’t eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you by force. And you will never get it back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. No one will be able to save them. ³² Your children will be given to another nation. Day after day you will watch for them to come back. But you will only wear out your eyes. You won’t be able to help your children. ³³ A nation you don’t know anything about will eat what you work to produce on your land. You will only be treated badly as long as you live. ³⁴ The things you see will make you lose your mind. ³⁵ The Lord will send painful boils on your knees and legs. No one will be able to heal them. They will cover you from head to toe.

³⁶ The Lord will drive you out of the land. And he will drive out the king you place over yourselves. All of you will go to another nation. You and your people of long ago didn’t know anything about them. There you will worship other gods. They will be made out of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will look very bad to all the nations where the Lord sends you. They will be completely shocked when they see you. They will mock you and make fun of you.

³⁸ You will plant many seeds in your field. But you will gather very little food. Locusts will eat it up. ³⁹ You will plant vineyards and take care of them. But you won’t drink the wine. You won’t gather the grapes. Worms will eat them up. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees through your whole country. But you won’t use the oil. The olives will drop off the trees. ⁴¹ You will have children. But you won’t be able to keep them. They’ll be taken away as prisoners. ⁴² Large numbers of locusts will eat up the leaves on all your trees. They will also eat up the crops on your land.

⁴³ Outsiders who live among you will become your leaders. They will rise higher and higher. But you will sink lower and lower. ⁴⁴ They will lend money to you. But you won’t be able to lend money to them. They will be the leaders. But you will be the followers.

⁴⁵ The Lord your God will send all these curses on you. They will follow you everywhere. They’ll catch up with you. You will be under the Lord’s curse until you are destroyed. That’s because you didn’t obey him. You didn’t keep the commands and rules he gave you. ⁴⁶ These curses will remain as signs and awful judgments against you and your children after you forever. ⁴⁷ You didn’t serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness when times were good. ⁴⁸ So he will send enemies against you. You will have to serve them. You will be hungry and thirsty. You will be naked and poor. The Lord will put the iron chains of slavery around your necks until he has destroyed you.

⁴⁹ The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away. It will come from the ends of the earth. It will dive down on you like an eagle. You won’t understand that nation’s language. ⁵⁰ Its people will look mean. They won’t have any respect for old people. They won’t show any kindness to young people. ⁵¹ They will eat up the young animals among your livestock. They’ll eat up the crops on your land. They’ll destroy you. They won’t leave you any grain, olive oil or fresh wine. They won’t leave you any calves or lambs. They’ll destroy you. ⁵² They’ll surround all the cities throughout your whole land. They’ll attack those cities until the high, strong walls you trust in fall down. That’s what will happen to the cities in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

⁵³ Your enemies will surround you and attack you. They will make you suffer greatly. So you will eat your own children. You will eat the dead bodies of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you. ⁵⁴ There may be a gentle and caring man among you. But he will treat his own brother badly. He’ll be just as mean to the wife he loves and to any of his children who are still alive. ⁵⁵ He won’t give to a single one of them any part of the dead bodies of his children that he’s eating. It will be all he has left to eat. That’s how much your enemies will make you suffer when they surround all your cities and attack them. ⁵⁶ There may be a gentle and caring woman among you. She wouldn’t even touch the ground with her feet without first putting her sandals on. But she will not share anything with the husband she loves. She won’t share with her own children either. ⁵⁷ She will eat what comes out of her body after she has a baby. Then she’ll even eat her baby. She won’t share it with anyone in her family. In her great hunger she’ll plan to eat it in secret. There won’t be anything else for her to eat because the city she lives in will be surrounded. That’s an example of how much your enemies will make you suffer when they are attacking your cities.

⁵⁸ Be careful to follow all the words of this law. They are written in this scroll. Have respect for the glorious and wonderful name of the Lord your God. If you don’t, ⁵⁹ he will send terrible plagues on you and your children after you. He’ll send horrible and lasting troubles. He’ll make you very sick for a long time. ⁶⁰ He’ll bring on you all the sicknesses you were afraid of getting when you were in Egypt. You won’t be able to get rid of them. ⁶¹ The Lord will also bring on you all other kinds of sickness and trouble. I haven’t even written those down in this Book of the Law. You will be destroyed. ⁶² At one time you were as many as the stars in the sky. But there will only be a few of you left. That’s because you didn’t obey the Lord your God. ⁶³ It pleased the Lord to give you success and to cause there to be many of you. But it will please him just as much to wipe you out and destroy you. You will be removed from the land you are entering to take as your own.

⁶⁴ Then the Lord will scatter you among all the nations. He’ll spread you around from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship statues of gods made out of wood and stone. You and your people of long ago hadn’t known anything about those gods. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you won’t find any peace. There won’t be any place where you can make your home and rest your feet. The Lord will give you minds filled with worry. He’ll give you eyes worn out from looking for help. You won’t have any hope in your hearts. ⁶⁶ Your lives will always be in danger. You will be filled with fear night and day. You will never be sure you are safe. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, “We wish it were evening!” In the evening you will say, “We wish it were morning!” Your hearts will be filled with fear. The things you see will terrify you. ⁶⁸ The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships. He’ll send you on a journey I said you should never have to make again. You will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves in Egypt. But no one will buy you.

Obey the Terms of the Covenant

29 Here are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab. The terms were added to the covenant he had made with them at Mount Horeb.

² Moses sent for all the Israelites. Here is what he said to them.

With your own eyes you have seen everything the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh. You have seen what he did to all Pharaoh’s officials and to his whole land. ³ With your own eyes you saw how the Lord really made them suffer. You saw the signs and amazing things he did. ⁴ But to this day the Lord hasn’t given you a mind that understands. He hasn’t given you eyes that see. He hasn’t given you ears that hear. ⁵ Yet the Lord says, “I led you through the desert for 40 years. During that time your clothes didn’t wear out. The sandals on your feet didn’t wear out either. ⁶ You didn’t eat any bread. You didn’t drink any kind of wine. I did all these things because I wanted you to know that I am the Lord your God.”

⁷ When you got here, Sihon and Og came out to fight against us. Sihon was the king of Heshbon. And Og was the king of Bashan. But we won the battle over them. ⁸ We took their land. We gave it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh as their share.

⁹ Be careful to obey the terms of this covenant. Then you will have success in everything you do. ¹⁰ Today all of you are standing here in the sight of the Lord your God. Your leaders and chief men are here. Your elders and officials are here. So are all the other men of Israel. ¹¹ Your children and wives are here with you too. So are the outsiders living in your camps. They chop your wood and carry your water. ¹² All of you are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God. He is making the covenant with you today. He’s giving you his word. ¹³ Today he wants to show you that you are his people and that he is your God. That’s what he promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ¹⁴ I’m making this covenant and the promise that goes along with it. I’m making this covenant with you. ¹⁵ You are standing here with us today in front of the Lord our God. And I’m also making this covenant with those who aren’t here today.

¹⁶ You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt. You also know how we passed through other countries on the way here. ¹⁷ You saw the statues of their gods made out of wood, stone, silver and gold. The Lord hates those statues. ¹⁸ Make sure there isn’t a man or woman among your families or tribes who turns away from the Lord our God. No one must worship the gods of those nations. Make sure that kind of worship doesn’t spread like bitter poison through your whole community.

¹⁹ Some people who worship those gods will hear the promise that seals the covenant I’m making. They think they can escape trouble by what they’re saying. They say, “We’ll be safe, even though we’re stubborn and go our own way.” But they will bring trouble on the whole land. ²⁰ The Lord will never be willing to forgive those people. His great anger will blaze out against them. All the curses I’ve written down in this book will fall on them. And the Lord will erase any mention of them from the earth. ²¹ He will find those people in all the tribes of Israel and give them nothing but trouble. That will agree with all the curses of the covenant. They are written down in this Book of the Law.

²² Even your children’s children will see the troubles that have fallen on the land. They’ll see the sicknesses the Lord has brought on it. People who come from countries far away will also see those things. ²³ The whole land will be burned up. Nothing but salt and sulfur will be left. Nothing will be planted there. Nothing will grow there. In fact, nothing will even start to grow there. The land will be like Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim after they were destroyed. The Lord wiped out those cities because he was very angry. ²⁴ All the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done this to the land? What could have made him so very angry?”

²⁵ And they will hear the answer, “It’s because the people living there have broken the covenant of the Lord. He’s the God of their people of long ago. He made that covenant with them when he brought them out of Egypt. ²⁶ They went off and worshiped other gods. They bowed down to them. They hadn’t known anything about those gods before. The Lord hadn’t given those gods to them. ²⁷ So the Lord became very angry with this land. He brought on it all the curses written down in this book. ²⁸ The Lord’s anger blazed out against his people. So he pulled them up out of their land. He threw them into another land. And that’s where they are now.”

²⁹ The Lord our God keeps certain things hidden. But he makes other things known to us and to our children forever. He does it so we can obey all the words of this law.