The Covenant in Moab
Deuteronomy 29, verse 1. Now Moses called all the children of Israel and said to them, “You saw all the Lord did before you in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land— Deuteronomy 29, verse 2. the great trials your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. Deuteronomy 29, verse 3. Yet the Lord your God has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day. Deuteronomy 29, verse 4. He also led you forty years in the desert. Your clothes did not grow old on you, and your sandals did not wear out on your feet. Deuteronomy 29, verse 5. You did not eat bread, nor did you drink wine or strong drink, that you may know He is the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 29, verse 6. Then you came to this place; and Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us in war, and we struck them. Deuteronomy 29, verse 7. We took their land, and gave it as an inheritance to Reuben, to Gad, and to half the tribe of Manasseh. Deuteronomy 29, verse 8. Therefore heed all the words of this covenant, to do them, that you may understand all these things you are doing. Deuteronomy 29, verse 9. “All of you stand today before the Lord your God: your chiefs, your elders, your judges and your teachers, all the men of Israel, Deuteronomy 29, verse 10. your wives and your offspring and the resident alien in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water, Deuteronomy 29, verse 11. that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God and into His oath the Lord your God makes with you today, Deuteronomy 29, verse 12. that He may establish you today as a people for Himself and be God to you, in the manner He told you, and in the manner He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Deuteronomy 29, verse 13. I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone, Deuteronomy 29, verse 14. but with those with us here today before the Lord your God, as well as with those not with us here today Deuteronomy 29, verse 15. (for you know we dwelt in the land of Egypt, and came through the nations you passed by; Deuteronomy 29, verse 16. and you saw their abominations and idols among them—wood, stone, silver, and gold). Deuteronomy 29, verse 17. “Surely there is not among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose mind turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations? And surely there is not among you a root bearing gall and bitterness? Deuteronomy 29, verse 18. So it shall be, if one should hear the words of this curse and flatter himself in his heart, saying, ‘May holy things happen for me, even though I go in the wanderings of my heart’ —lest the sinner destroy the sinless along with him— Deuteronomy 29, verse 19. God will not be merciful to him; for then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will cling to him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. Deuteronomy 29, verse 20. “So the Lord will separate him from all the children of Israel for evils, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of this law. Deuteronomy 29, verse 21. They will say, that is, the coming generation of your sons who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, and they see the plagues of that land and its diseases which the Lord sent upon it, Deuteronomy 29, verse 22. ‘The whole land will be brimstone and burning salt; it will not be sown, nor will it bear, nor will any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath.’ Deuteronomy 29, verse 23. They and all the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’ Deuteronomy 29, verse 24. Then they will say, ‘Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with their fathers when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; Deuteronomy 29, verse 25. for they went and served different gods and worshiped them, which they did not know, nor had He allotted to them. Deuteronomy 29, verse 26. Then the Lord was aroused in anger against that land, to bring on it all the curses written in the book of this law; Deuteronomy 29, verse 27. and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’ Deuteronomy 29, verse 28. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.