1These are the words of the covenant , which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab , beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb . 2And 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 Pharaoh , and unto all his servants , and unto all his land ; 3The great temptations which thine eyes have seen , the signs , and those great miracles : 4Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive , and eyes to see , and ears to hear , unto this day . 5And I have led you forty years in the wilderness : your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot . 6Ye have not eaten bread , neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink : that ye might know that I am the LORD your God . 7And when ye came unto this place , Sihon the king of Heshbon , and Og the king of Bashan , came out against us unto battle , and we smote them: 8And we took their land , and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites , and to the Gadites , and to the half tribe of Manasseh . 9Keep therefore the words of this covenant , and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do .
Warning Against Idolatry
10Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God ; your captains of your tribes , your elders , and your officers , with all the men of Israel , 11Your little ones , your wives , and thy stranger that is in thy camp , from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water : 12That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God , and into his oath , which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day : 13That he may establish thee to day for 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 , to Abraham , to Isaac , and to Jacob . 14Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath ; 15But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God , and also with him that is not here with us this day : 16(For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt ; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by ; 17And ye have seen their abominations , and their idols , wood and stone , silver and gold , which were among them:) 18Lest there should be among you man , or woman , or family , or tribe , whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God , to go and serve the gods of these nations ; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood ; 19And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse , that he bless himself in his heart , saying , I shall have peace , though I walk in the imagination of mine heart , to add drunkenness to thirst : 20The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man , and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven . 21And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel , according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law :
The Consequences of Disobedience
22So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land , shall say , when they see the plagues of that land , and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it; 23And that the whole land thereof is brimstone , and salt , and burning , that it is not sown , nor beareth , nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom , and Gomorrah , Admah , and Zeboim , which the LORD overthrew in his anger , and in his wrath : 24Even all nations shall say , Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land ? what meaneth the heat of this great anger ? 25Then men shall say , Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers , which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt : 26For they went and served other gods , and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them: 27And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land , to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book : 28And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger , and in wrath , and in great indignation , and cast them into another land , as it is this day .
The Secret Things Belong to the Lord
29The secret things belong unto the LORD our God : but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever , that we may do all the words of this law .