Study Desk

(for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the midst of the nations through which you passed;

moreover, you have seen their abominations and their idols made of ^(C1)wood and stone, silver and gold, which they had with them);

^(C1)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 to serve the gods of those nations; that there will not be among you ^(C2)a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood.

"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 ^(F1)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 ^(C1)His wrath will ^(F1)(C2)burn against that person, and every curse that is written in this book will lie upon him, and the LORD will ^(C3)wipe out his name from under heaven.

"Then the LORD will single him out for disaster from all the tribes of Israel, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant ^(C1)which is written in this Book of the Law.

"Now the future generation, your sons who rise up after you and ^(C1)the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of that land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it, will say,

'All its land is ^(C1)brimstone and salt, ^(C2)burned debris, ^(F1)unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows on it, like the overthrow of ^(C3)Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger and in His wrath.'

"All the nations will say, '^(C1)Why has the LORD done all this to this land? Why this great ^(F1)outburst of anger?'

"Then people will say, 'It is ^(C1)because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

'And they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they have not known and whom He had not ^(F1)assigned to them.

'Therefore, the anger of the LORD burned against that land, ^(C1)to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book;

and ^(C1)the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger, fury, and in great wrath, and hurled them into another land, as it is this day.'

"^(C1)The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but ^(C2)the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, so that we may ^(F1)follow all the words of this Law.