Dual Panel1These are the terms of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant which he made with them on Horeb.
2MOSES summoned all the Israelites and addressed them: You have seen for yourselves all that the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his courtiers, and to his whole land,
3the great challenge which you yourselves witnessed, those great signs and portents,
4but to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.
5I led you for forty years in the wilderness; the clothes on your back did not wear out, nor did your sandals become worn and fall off your feet;
6you ate no bread and drank no wine or strong drink, in order that you might learn that I am the LORD your God.
7When you reached this place King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan launched an attack on us. We defeated them,
8took their land, and gave it as a holding to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh.
9Observe the provisions of this covenant and keep them so that you may be successful in all you do.
10You are standing here today before the LORD your God, all of you leaders of tribes, elders, and officers, all the men of Israel,
11with your dependants, your wives, the aliens who live in your camp -- all of them, from those who cut wood for you to those who draw water --
12and you are ready to accept the oath and enter into the covenant which the LORD your God is making with you now.
13The covenant is to constitute you his people this day, and he will be your God, as he promised you and as he swore to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
14It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath,
15but with all those who stand here with us today before the LORD our God and also with those who are not here with us today.
16You know how we lived in Egypt and how we and you, as we passed through the nations,
17saw their loathsome idols and the false gods they had, gods made of wood and stone, of silver and gold.
18If there should be among you a man or woman, family or tribe, who is moved today to turn from the LORD our God and to go and serve the gods of those nations -- if there is among you such a root from which springs gall and wormwood,
19then any such person on hearing the terms of this oath may inwardly flatter himself and think, “All will be well with me even if I follow the promptings of my stubborn heart”; but this will bring sweeping disaster.
20The LORD will not be willing to forgive him; but his anger and resentment will overwhelm this person, and the curses described in this book will fall heavily on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven.
21The LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster to fall on him, according to the oath required by the covenant and prescribed in this book of the law.
22The next generation, your children who follow you, and the foreigners who come from distant countries, will see the plagues of this land and the diseases which the LORD has brought upon its people,
23the whole land burnt up with brimstone and salt, nothing sown, nothing growing, not a plant in sight. It will be as desolate as Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, when the LORD overthrew them in raging anger.
24Then they, and all the nations with them, will ask, “Why has the LORD so afflicted this land? Why this great outburst of anger?”
25The answer will be: “Because they forsook the covenant of the LORD the God of their forefathers which he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.
26They began to serve other gods and to bow down to them, gods of whom they had no experience and whom the LORD had not assigned to them.
27The anger of the LORD was roused against that land, so that he brought on it all the curses described in this book.
28The LORD uprooted them from their soil in anger, in rage and great fury, and banished them to another land, where they are to this day.”
29There are things hidden, and they belong to the LORD our God, but what is revealed belongs to us and our children for ever; it is for us to observe all that is prescribed in this law.