Study Desk

After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time-if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger,

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.

The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.

There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.

But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.

When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him.

For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.