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, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.
2
Now Moses called all Israel and said to them: "You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land--
3
the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders.
4
Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.
5
And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet.
6
You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or similar drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.
7
And when you came to this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we conquered them.
8
We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh.
9
Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
10
"All of you stand today before the Lord your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel,
11
your little ones and your wives--also the stranger who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water--
12
that you may enter into covenant with the Lord your God, and into His oath, which the Lord your God makes with you today,
13
that He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
14
"I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone,
15
but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today
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 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, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing 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 follow the dictates of my heart'--as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.
20
The Lord would not spare him; for then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the Lord would blot out his name from under heaven.