¹⁶ “You remember how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we traveled through the lands of enemy nations as we left. ¹⁷ You have seen their detestable practices and their idols^[a] made of wood, stone, silver, and gold. ¹⁸ I am making this covenant with you so that no one among you—no man, woman, clan, or tribe—will turn away from the Lord our God to worship these gods of other nations, and so that no root among you bears bitter and poisonous fruit.

¹⁹ “Those who hear the warnings of this curse should not congratulate themselves, thinking, ‘I am safe, even though I am following the desires of my own stubborn heart.’ This would lead to utter ruin! ²⁰ The Lord will never pardon such people. Instead his anger and jealousy will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will come down on them, and the Lord will erase their names from under heaven. ²¹ The Lord will separate them from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out on them all the curses of the covenant recorded in this Book of Instruction.

²² “Then the generations to come, both your own descendants and the foreigners who come from distant lands, will see the devastation of the land and the diseases the Lord inflicts on it. ²³ They will exclaim, ‘The whole land is devastated by sulfur and salt. It is a wasteland with nothing planted and nothing growing, not even a blade of grass. It is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger.’

²⁴ “And all the surrounding nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why was he so angry?’

²⁵ “And the answer will be, ‘This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. ²⁶ Instead, they turned away to serve and worship gods they had not known before, gods that were not from the Lord. ²⁷ That is why the Lord’s anger has burned against this land, bringing down on it every curse recorded in this book. ²⁸ In great anger and fury the Lord uprooted his people from their land and banished them to another land, where they still live today!’

²⁹ “The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.