Study Desk

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

'Cursed is one who treats his father or mother contemptuously.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is one who displaces his neighbor's boundary marker.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who sleeps with his father's wife, because he has uncovered his father's garment.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who sleeps with his mother-in-law.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed is he who attacks his neighbor in secret.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

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

"The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.

"The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless every work of your hand; and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

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

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

"The man who is refined and very delicate among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife he cherishes, and toward the rest of his children who are left,

so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will oppress you in all your towns.

And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, "You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants, and to all his land;

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

in order 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.

"And it shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will consider himself fortunate in his heart, saying, 'I will do well though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the watered land along with the dry.'

"The LORD will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and His wrath will burn against that person, and every curse that is written in this book will lie upon him, and the LORD will wipe out his name from under heaven.

'All its land is brimstone and salt, burned debris, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows on it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger and in His wrath.'