Study Desk

"When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce the third year, [which is] the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow, so that they may eat within the gates of your cities and be satisfied.

"So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you.

"The LORD will strike you with consumption [causing you to waste away] and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew [on your crops]; and they will pursue you until you perish.

"The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out against them one way, but flee before them seven ways, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth [when they see your destruction].

"You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours [for long], because they will go into captivity.

"They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.

and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish.

"They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you.

"Moreover, He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.

and you have seen their detestable acts and their [repulsive] idols of wood and stone, [lifeless images] of silver and gold, which they had with them),

"Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it, will say,

'For they went and served other gods and worshiped them, [false] gods whom they have not known and whom He had not allotted (given) to them.

"Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) within your cities, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], and be careful to obey all the words of this law.

The LORD said to Moses, "Behold, you are about to lie down [in death] with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the prostitute (commit apostasy) with the foreign gods [of the people] of the land, where they go to be among them. They will abandon (turn away from) Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

"Then My anger will be kindled and burn against them in that day, and I will abandon (turn away from) them and hide My face from them. They will be devoured, and many evils and troubles will come on them, so that they will say in that day, 'Is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have come on us?'

"For when I bring them into the land which I have sworn to their fathers, a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and are satisfied and become prosperous, then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise and reject Me and break My covenant.

"They (Israel) have acted corruptly toward Him. They are not His children, because of their [moral] defect; But are a perverse and crooked generation.

"Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will inform you, Your elders, and they will tell you.

"They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods [by denying Him the honor and loyalty that is rightfully and uniquely His]; And with repulsive acts they provoked Him to anger.

'They will be wasted by hunger, and consumed by plague And a bitter destruction; And I will send the teeth of beasts against them, With the venom of crawling things of the dust.