Deuteronomy 29:16-29

Living Bible

¹⁶ “Surely you remember how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how as we left, we came safely through the territory of enemy nations. ¹⁷ And you have seen their heathen idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold. ¹⁸ The day that any of you—man or woman, family or tribe of Israel—begins to turn away from the Lord our God and desires to worship these gods of other nations, that day a root will be planted that will grow bitter and poisonous fruit.

¹⁹ “Let no one blithely think, when he hears the warnings of this curse, ‘I shall prosper even though I walk in my own stubborn way!’ ²⁰ For the Lord will not pardon! His anger and jealousy will be hot against that man. And all the curses written in this book shall lie heavily upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹ The Lord will separate that man from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out upon him all the curses (which are recorded in this book) that befall those who break this contract. ²² Then your children and the generations to come and the foreigners that pass by from distant lands shall see the devastation of the land and the diseases the Lord will have sent upon it. ²³ They will see that the whole land is alkali and salt, a burned over wasteland, unsown, without crops, without a shred of vegetation—just like Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, destroyed by the Lord in his anger.

²⁴ “‘Why has the Lord done this to his land?’ the nations will ask. ‘Why was he so angry?’

²⁵ “And they will be told, ‘Because the people of the land broke the contract made with them by Jehovah, the God of their ancestors, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. ²⁶ For they worshiped other gods, violating his express command. ²⁷ That is why the anger of the Lord was hot against this land, so that all his curses (which are recorded in this book) broke forth upon them. ²⁸ In great anger the Lord rooted them out of their land and threw them away into another land, where they still live today!’

²⁹ “There are secrets the Lord your God has not revealed to us, but these words that he has revealed are for us and our children to obey forever.