Deuteronomy chapter .xxix.
¶ These are the words of the appointment which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the appointment which he made with them in Horeb.
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 Pharao and unto all his servants, and unto all his land,
and the great temptations which thine eyes have seen and those great miracles and wonders:
And yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear unto this day.
And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: and your clothes are not waxed old upon you, nor are thy shoes waxed old upon thy feet.
Ye have eaten no bread nor drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know, how that he is the LORD your God.
And at the last ye came unto this place, and Sihon the king of Hesbon and Og king of Basan came out against you unto battle, and we smote them
and took their land and gave it an heritance unto the Rubenites and Gadites and to the half tribe of Manasse.
Keep therefore the word of this appointment and do them, that ye may understand all that ye ought to do.
¶ Ye stond here this day every one of you before the LORD your God: both the heads of your tribes, your elders, your officers and all the men of Israel:
your children, your wives and the strangers that are in thine host, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
that thou shouldst come under the appointment of the LORD thy God, and under his oath which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day.
For to make thee 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 Abraham, Isaac and Iacob.
Also I make not this bond and this oath with you only:
but both with him that stoodeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day.
For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we came thorow the midst of the nations which we passed by.
And ye have seen their abominations and their idols: wood, stone, silver, gold, which they had.
Lest there be among you man or woman kindred or tribe that turneth away in his heart this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations: and lest there be among you some root that beareth gall and wormwood,
so that when he heareth the words of this curse, he bless himself in his heart saying: I fear it not, I will therefore walk after the lust of mine own heart, that the drunken destroy the thirsty.
And so the LORD will not be merciful unto him, but then the wrath of the LORD and his jealousy, smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book light upon him, and the LORD do out his name from under heaven,
and separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel according unto all the curses of the appointment that is written in the book of this law.
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, say when they see the plagues of that land, and the diseases wherewith the LORD hath smitten it,
how all the land is burnt up with brimstone and salt, that it is neither sown nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, after the overthrowing of Sodom, Gomor, Adama and Zeboim: which the LORD overthrew in his wrath and anger.
And then all nations also say: wherefore hath the LORD done of this fashion unto this land? O how fierce is this great wrath?
And men shall say: because they left the testament of the LORD God of their fathers which he made with them, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
And they went and served strange gods and worshipped them: gods which they knew not and which had given them nought.
And therefore the wrath of the LORD waxed hot upon that land to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book.
And the LORD cast them out of their land in anger, wrath and great furiousness, and cast them into a strange land, as it is come to pass this day.
The secrets pertain unto the LORD our God and the things that are opened pertain unto us and our children for ever, that we do all the words of this law.
Praise the Everlasting Lord for His Faithful Word.