¹⁶ “You know how we dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed; ¹⁷ and you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. ¹⁸ Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there be among you 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 would lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. ²⁰ The Lord would not pardon him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy would smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book would settle upon him, and the Lord would blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹ And the Lord would 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 generation to come, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, would say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick— ²³ the whole land brimstone and salt, and a burnt-out waste, unsown, and growing nothing, where no grass can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomor′rah, Admah and Zeboi′im, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— ²⁴ yea, all the nations would say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What means the heat of this great anger?’ ²⁵ Then men would say, ‘It is because they forsook 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, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book; ²⁸ and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as at this day.’

²⁹ “The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.