Abandoning the Covenant
16 "Indeed, you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and passed through the nations where you traveled.
17
You saw their detestable images and idols [made] of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them.
18
Be sure there is no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Be sure there is no root among you bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.
19
When someone hears the words of this oath, he may bless himself in his mind, thinking, 'I will have peace even though I follow my [own] stubborn heart.' This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered [land] as well as the dry [land].
20
The Lord will not be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that person, and every curse written in this scroll will descend on him. The Lord will blot out his name under heaven,
21
and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.
22
"Future generations of your children who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant country will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the Lord has inflicted on it.
23
All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown, producing nothing, with no plant growing on it, just like the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord demolished in His fierce anger.
24
All the nations will ask, 'Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?'
25
Then people will answer, 'It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He had made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.
26
They began to worship other gods, bowing down to gods they had not known-gods that the Lord had not permitted them [to worship].
27
Therefore the Lord's anger burned against this land, and He brought every curse written in this book on it.
28
The Lord uprooted them from their land in [His] anger, fury, and great wrath, and threw them into another land where they are today.'
29
The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.