‘Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them [keeping them, taking them to heart as the rule of his life].’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

“Now it shall be, if you diligently listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all of His commandments which I am commanding you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you pay attention to the voice of the Lord your God.

“The offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your animals, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be blessed.

The Lord will establish you as a people holy [and set apart] to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk [that is, live your life each and every day] in His ways.

So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will be afraid of you.

The Lord will give you great prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

The Lord will open for you His good treasure house, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

The Lord will make you the head (leader) and not the tail (follower); and you will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listen and pay attention to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today, to observe them carefully.

Do not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or to the left, to follow and serve other gods.

“But it shall come about, if you do not listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

“The offspring of your body and the produce of your land, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be cursed.

“The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your deeds, because you have turned away from Me.

The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed.

“The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out against them one way, but flee before them seven ways, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth [when they see your destruction].

Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

“The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and the itch that you cannot heal.

The Lord will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart and mind;

You will be pledged to marry a wife, but another man will be intimate with her [before you]; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.

Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it; your donkey will be torn away from you, and it will not be returned to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all the products of your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and exploited and crushed continually.

The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs with sore boils that you cannot heal, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

The Lord will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation which you and your fathers have never known; there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone.

You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because the worm will eat them.

The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground.

“So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you.

They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.

“Because you did not serve the Lord your God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you],

you will therefore serve your enemies whom the Lord sends against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke [of slavery] on your neck until He has destroyed you.

“The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle swoops down [to attack], a nation whose language you will not understand,

a defiant nation who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young,

and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish.

Then you will eat the offspring of your own body [to avoid starvation], the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you.

The man who is most refined and well-bred among you will be cruel and hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain,

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

The most refined and well-bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and pampered, will be cruel and hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter,

and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her legs and toward the children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.

“If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear and honor with reverence this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God,

then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses.

Moreover, He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.

Also the Lord will bring on you every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of this law, until you are destroyed.

Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number.

And the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

Among those nations you will find no peace (rest), and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

Your life will hang in doubt before you; night and day you will be filled with anxiety and have no assurance of living.

In the morning you will say, ‘I wish it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’—because of the dread in your heart with which you tremble, and because of the sight of your eyes which you will see.

These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which He made with them at Horeb (Sinai).

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, to all his servants, and to all his land;

I have led you in the wilderness forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet.

When you reached this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out to meet us in battle, but we defeated them;

and we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

So keep the words of this covenant and obey them, so that you may prosper and be successful in everything that you do.

“All of you stand today before the Lord your God—your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers, even all the men of Israel,

your little ones, your wives, and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your camps, from the one who chops and gathers your firewood to the one who draws your water—

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

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

and you have seen their detestable acts and their [repulsive] idols of wood and stone, [lifeless images] of silver and gold, which they had with them),

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 and serve the [false] gods of these nations; so that there will not be among you a root [of idolatry] bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood (bitterness).

It will happen that when he (a renegade) hears the words of this oath, and he imagines himself as blessed, saying, ‘I will have peace and safety even though I walk within the stubbornness of my heart [rejecting God and His law], in order that the watered land dwindles away along with the dry [destroying everything],’

the Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him; the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.

Then the Lord will single him out for disaster from all the tribes of Israel [making an example of him], according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law.

Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say,

‘The whole land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it; it is like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and wrath.’

All the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done this thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned (broke) 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.

So the anger of the Lord burned against this land, bringing on it every curse that is written in this book;

and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things which are revealed and disclosed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may do all of the words of this law.

Even if any of your dispersed are at the ends of the earth, the Lord your God will gather you together from there, and from there He will bring you back.

“And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants [that is, He will remove the desire to sin from your heart], so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, so that you may live [as a recipient of His blessing].

And you shall again listen to and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all His commandments which I command you today.

Then the Lord your God shall make you abundantly prosperous in everything that you do, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your land; for the Lord will again delight over you for good, just as He delighted over your fathers,

if you listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul (your entire being).

“For this commandment which I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.

in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk [that is, to live each and every day] in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments (precepts), so that you will live and multiply, and that the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you will not hear and obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them,

by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding closely to Him; for He is your life [your good life, your abundant life, your fulfillment] and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord promised (swore) to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

The Lord will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them.

Then Moses called to Joshua and said to him in the sight of all [the people of] Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you will go with this people into the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you will give it to them as an inheritance.

So Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.

Then Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, at the time of year when debts are forgiven, at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles),

Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) within your cities, so that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], and be careful to obey all the words of this law.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, the time for you to die is near; call Joshua, and present yourselves at the Tent of Meeting, so that I may commission him.” So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the Tent of Meeting.

Then the Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood beside the doorway of the tent.

The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down [in death] with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the prostitute (commit apostasy) with the foreign gods [of the people] of the land, where they go to be among them. They will abandon (turn away from) Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

But I will certainly hide My face [from them] in that day because of all the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods [to worship lifeless idols, to honor handmade relics].

Then it shall come about, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this [sacred] song will confront them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten from the mouth of their descendants. For I know their inclination which is developing even now, before I bring them into the land which I have sworn to give them.”

Then He commanded and commissioned Joshua, the son of Nun, and said, “Be strong and courageous, for you will bring the sons of Israel into the land which I have sworn to give them, and I will be with you.”

And when Moses completely finished writing the words of this law in a book,

he commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,

“Take this Book of the Law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, so that it may remain there as a witness against you.

Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, so that I may speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth as witnesses against them.

For I know that after my death you will behave corruptly and turn from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will come upon you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger with the work of your hands.”

Then Moses spoke in the hearing of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended:

“Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;
And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

“For I proclaim the name [and presence] of the Lord;
Ascribe greatness and honor to our God!

“The Rock! His work is perfect,
For all His ways are just;
A God of faithfulness without iniquity (injustice),
Just and upright is He.

“Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of many generations.
Ask your father, and he will inform you,
Your elders, and they will tell you.

“When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
When He separated the sons of man,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the sons of Israel.

“For the Lord’s portion and chosen share is His people;
Jacob (Israel) is the allotment of His inheritance.