^28-29 So all these people now make this special promise to God. And they all ask for bad things to happen if they don’t keep their promise. All these people promise to follow the law of God. That law of God was given to us through Moses his servant. These people promise with an oath to carefully obey all the commands, rules, and teachings of our Lord God. Now, these are the people who are making this promise: The rest of the people—the priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, Temple servants, and all the Israelites who separated themselves from the people living around them. They have separated themselves to obey God’s law. Their wives, sons, and daughters who are able to listen and understand also did this. All these people joined their brothers and the important people to accept for themselves the promise to obey God’s law. And they accepted the curse that asks for bad things to happen to them if they don’t obey God’s law.

³⁰ “We promise not to let our daughters marry the people living around us. And we promise not to let our sons marry their daughters.

³¹ “We promise not to work on the Sabbath day. If the people living around us bring grain or other things to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy them on that special day or on any other festival. Every seventh year,^[a] we will not plant or work the land. And every seventh year, we will cancel every debt that other people owe to us.