Study Desk

All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given you.

"Because you have not served the Lord your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have,

They will besiege all of your villages until all of your high and fortified walls collapse—those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you.

You will then eat your own offspring, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege by which your enemies will constrict you.

"If you refuse to obey all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God,

There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, because you will have disobeyed the Lord your God.

You have eaten no bread and drunk no wine or beer—all so that you might know that I am the Lord your God!

You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God—the heads of your tribes, your elders, your officials, every Israelite man,

so that you may enter by oath into the covenant the Lord your God is making with you today.

Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God, just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

but with whoever stands with us here today before the Lord our God as well as those not with us here today.

Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit.

Then people will say, "Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord , the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law.

"When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses I have set before you, you will reflect upon them in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you.

Then if you and your descendants turn to the Lord your God and obey him with your whole mind and being just as I am commanding you today,

the Lord your God will reverse your captivity and have pity on you. He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom he has scattered you.

Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

The Lord your God will also cleanse your heart and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love him with all your mind and being and so that you may live.

Then the Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies, on those who hate you and persecute you.