¹⁶ (for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by, ¹⁷ and you saw their ^[a]abominations and their idols which were among them—wood and stone and silver and gold); ¹⁸ so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, ^(A)whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, ^(B)and that there may not be among you a root bearing ^(C)bitterness or wormwood; ¹⁹ and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I ^[b]follow the ^(D)dictates of my heart’—^(E)as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.

^20 (F)“The Lord would not spare him; for then ^(G)the anger of the Lord and ^(H)His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the Lord ^(I)would blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹ And the Lord ^(J)would separate him from all the tribes of Israel for adversity, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the ^(K)Law, ²² so that the coming generation of your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, would say, when they ^(L)see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord has laid on it:

²³ ‘The whole land is brimstone, ^(M)salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, ^(N)like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath.’ ²⁴ All nations would say, ^(O)‘Why has the Lord done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’ ²⁵ Then people would say: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; ²⁶ for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them. ²⁷ Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against this land, ^(P)to bring on it every curse that is written in this book. ²⁸ And the Lord ^(Q)uprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’

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