Study Desk

"So you shall obey the voice of the LORD your God, and do His commandments and statutes which I am commanding you today."

"Now it shall be, if you diligently listen to and obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all of His commandments which I am commanding you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

"All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you pay attention to the voice of the LORD your God.

"The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your storehouses and in all that you undertake, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

"The LORD will establish you as a people holy [and set apart] to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk [that is, live your life each and every day] in His ways.

"The LORD will make you the head (leader) and not the tail (follower); and you will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listen and pay attention to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am commanding you today, to observe them carefully.

"But it shall come about, if you do not listen to and obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

"So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you.

"Because you did not serve the LORD your God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you],

"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.

"Then you will eat the offspring of your own body [to avoid starvation], the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you.

"If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear and honor with reverence this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God,

"Because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number.

"You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, so that you might know that I am the LORD your God [on whom you must depend].

"All of you stand today before the LORD your God—your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers, even all the men of Israel,

so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, and into His oath and agreement which the LORD your God is making with you today,

so that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

but with those [future Israelites] who are not here with us today, as well as with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God

so that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the [false] gods of these nations; so that there will not be among you a root [of idolatry] bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood (bitterness).

"It will happen that when he (a renegade) hears the words of this oath, and he imagines himself as blessed, saying, 'I will have peace and safety even though I walk within the stubbornness of my heart [rejecting God and His law], in order that the watered land dwindles away along with the dry [destroying everything],'