Deuteronomy 29:17-27

17 You got an eyeful of their obscenities, their wood and stone, silver and gold junk-gods.

18 Don't let down your guard lest even now, today, someone - man or woman, clan or tribe - gets sidetracked from God, our God, and gets involved with the no-gods of the nations; lest some poisonous weed sprout and spread among you,

19 a person who hears the words of the Covenant-oath but exempts himself, thinking, "I'll live just the way I please, thank you," and ends up ruining life for everybody.

20 God won't let him off the hook. God's anger and jealousy will erupt like a volcano against that person. The curses written in this book will bury him. God will delete his name from the records.

21 God will separate him out from all the tribes of Israel for special punishment, according to all the curses of the Covenant written in this Book of Revelation.

22 The next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a far country, will be appalled when they see the widespread devastation, how God made the whole land sick.

23 They'll see a fire-blackened wasteland of brimstone and salt flats, nothing planted, nothing growing, not so much as a blade of grass anywhere - like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which God overthrew in fiery rage.

24 All the nations will ask, "Why did God do this to this country? What on earth could have made him this angry?"

25 Your children will answer, "Because they abandoned the Covenant of the God of their ancestors that he made with them after he got them out of Egypt;

26 they went off and worshiped other gods, submitted to gods they'd never heard of before, gods they had no business dealing with.

27 So God's anger erupted against that land and all the curses written in this book came down on it.

Deuteronomy 29:17-27 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 29

This chapter begins with an intimation of another covenant the Lord was about to make with the people of Israel, De 29:1; and, to prepare their minds to an attention to it, various things which the Lord had done for them are recited, De 29:2-9; the persons are particularly mentioned with whom the covenant would now be made, the substance of which is, that they should be his people, and he their God, De 29:10-15; and since they had seen the idols in Egypt and other countries, with which they might have been ensnared, they are cautioned against idolatry and idolaters, as being most provoking to the Lord, De 29:16-21; which would bring destruction not only on particular persons, but upon their whole land, to the amazement of posterity; who, inquiring the reason of it, will be told, it was because they forsook the covenant of God, and particularly were guilty of idolatry, which, whether privately or openly committed, would be always punished, De 29:22-29.