The Covenant in Moab

1These 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 Choreb.

2And Moses called all the sons of Israel and said to them, Ye have seen all things that the Lord did in the land of Egypt before you to Pharao and his servants, and all his land; 3the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. 4Yet the Lord God has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day. 5And he led you forty years in the wilderness; your garments did not grow old, and your sandals were not worn away off your feet. 6Ye did not eat bread, ye did not drink wine or strong drink, that ye might know that I am the Lord your God. 7And ye came as far as this place; and there came forth Seon king of Esebon, and Og king of Basan, to meet us in war. 8And we smote them and took their land, and I gave it for an inheritance to Ruben and Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasse. 9And ye shall take heed to do all the words of this covenant, that ye may understand all things that ye shall do.

10Ye all stand to-day before the Lord your God, the heads of your tribes, and your elders, and your judges, and your officers, every man of Israel, 11your wives, and your children, and the stranger who is in the midst of your camp, from your hewer of wood even to your drawer of water, 12that thou shouldest enter into the covenant of the Lord thy God and into his oaths, as many as the Lord thy God appoints thee this day; 13that he may appoint thee to himself for a people, and he shall be thy God, as he said to thee, and as he sware to thy fathers, Abraam, and Isaac, and Jacob.

14And I do not appoint to you alone this covenant and this oath; 15but to those also who are here with you to-day before the Lord your God, and to those who are not here with you to-day. 16For ye know how we dwelt in the land of Egypt, how we came through the midst of the nations through whom ye came. 17And ye beheld their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which are among them. 18Lest there be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart has turned aside from the Lord your God, having gone to serve the gods of these nations; lest there be in you a root springing up with gall and bitterness. 19And it shall be if one shall hear the words of this curse, and shall flatter himself in his heart, saying, Let good happen to me, for I will walk in the error of my heart, lest the sinner destroy the guiltless with him: 20God shall by no means be willing to pardon him, but then the wrath of the Lord and his jealousy shall flame out against that man; and all the curses of this covenant shall attach themselves to him, which are written in this book, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. 21And the Lord shall separate that man for evil of all the children of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in the book of this law.

22And another generation shall say—even your sons who shall rise up after you, and the stranger who shall come from a land afar off, and shall see the plagues of that land and their diseases, which the Lord has sent upon it, 23brimstone and burning salt, (the whole land shall not be sown, neither shall any green thing spring, nor rise upon it, as Sodom and Gomorrha were overthrown, Adama and Seboim, which the Lord overthrew in his wrath and anger:)— 24and all the nations shall say, Why has the Lord done thus to this land? what is this great fierceness of anger? 25And men shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, the things which he appointed to their fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt: 26and they went and served other gods, which they knew not, neither did he assign them to them. 27And the Lord was exceedingly angry with that land to bring upon it according to all the curses which are written in the book of this law. 28And the Lord removed them from their land in anger, and wrath, and very great indignation, and cast them out into another land as at present.

29The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, to do all the words of this law.