Deuteronomy 29:17-27

17 and ye have seen their abominations and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them);

18 lest there should be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of these nations, lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood,

19 and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, `I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart'--to add drunkenness to thirst.

20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.

21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law,

22 so that the generation to come of your children who shall rise up after you, and the stranger who shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it,

23 and that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt and burning, that it is not sown nor beareth nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger and in His wrath--

24 even all nations shall say, `Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger?'

25 Then men shall say, `Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them forth out of the land of Egypt;

26 for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they knew not and whom He had not given unto them.

27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book;

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.