The Moab Covenant
29 1 These are the covenant words our Father commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, besides the covenant he made with them at Horeb. 2 Moses called all Israel and told them: You saw all our Father did before your eyes in Egypt's land—to Pharaoh, all his servants, all his land. 3 —the great tests you saw with your own eyes, those mighty signs and wonders. 4 But to this day our Father has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, ears to hear.
5 Forty years I led you in the wilderness; your clothes never wore out, nor your sandals on your feet. 6 You ate no bread, drank no wine or strong drink, so you would know I am your Father.
7 When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan marched out against us, and we struck them. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh. 9 Keep the words of this covenant and do them, so you may prosper in all you do. 10 Today you all stand before your Father: your tribal heads, elders and officers, every man of Israel, 11 your little ones, wives, and the foreigner in your camp, from those cutting your wood to those drawing your water, 12 so you may enter the covenant of your Father, and his oath, which your Father makes with you today, 13 to make you his people today, and to be your Father, as he promised you and swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 14 It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant, sworn with an oath, 15 but with everyone standing here with us today before our Father, and with everyone not here with us today. 16 You know how we lived in Egypt and passed through the nations you traveled among. 17 You saw their detestable things and idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold among them. 18 Let no one among you — man, woman, clan, or tribe — turn his heart today from our Father to serve those nations' gods, and let no root among you bear poison and bitter fruit, 19 who hears this oath yet blesses himself, saying, I'll be safe though I follow my stubborn heart — sweeping away the watered land with the dry. a a v19 "Sweeps away the watered land with the dry" — a Hebrew idiom for total, sweeping ruin: everything destroyed, lush and parched alike. 20 Our Father will refuse to forgive him; instead his anger and jealousy will burn against that man, every curse written in this book will settle on him, and our Father will erase his name from under heaven. 21 Our Father will single him out for disaster from all Israel's tribes, matching every covenant curse written in this Book of the Law.
22 The next generation, your children after you, and the foreigner from a distant land, will see that land's plagues and the diseases our Father inflicted on it. 23 sulfur and salt, the whole land burned, unsown, sprouting nothing, no plant growing there, like the ruin of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which our Father ruined in his blazing anger 24 —all nations will ask, Why did our Father do this to this land? What is this great burning anger?
25 They will answer: Because they abandoned the covenant of their Father, made with them when he brought them out of Egypt's land, 26 and served other gods, bowing to them—gods they never knew, that he never assigned them. 27 So our Father's anger burned against that land, bringing on it every curse written in this book. 28 And our Father uprooted them from their land in anger, rage, and great outrage, and threw them into another land, as it is today.
29 Hidden things belong to our Father; revealed things, to us and our children forever, to do all the words of this law.
