1 These are the words of the covenant, which the
LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab,
beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
2 And
Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the
LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his
servants, and unto all his land;
3 The
great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great
miracles:
4 Yet
the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to
hear, unto this day.
5 And
I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old
upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.
6 Ye
have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might
know that I am the
LORD your God.
7 And
when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of
Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:
8 And
we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to
the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
9 Keep
therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all
that ye do.
10 Ye
stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your
tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11 Your
little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy
camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
12 That
thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath,
which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:
13 That
he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he
may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto
thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14 Neither
with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15 But
with him that
standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not
here with us this day:
16 (For
ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the
nations which ye passed by;
17 And
ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and
gold, which were among
them:)
18 Lest
there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart
turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve
the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth
gall and wormwood;
19 And
it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself
in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of
mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
20 The
LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall
smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall
lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21 And
the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel,
according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of
the law:
22 So
that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and
the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the
plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone,
and salt, and burning, that it
is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of
Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger,
and in his wrath:
24 Even
all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the
heat of this great anger?
25 Then
men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their
fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of
Egypt:
26 For
they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not,
and whom he
had not given unto them:
27 And
the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the
curses that are written in this book:
28 And
the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great
indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this
day.
29 The
secret things belong unto
the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto
us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
