Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 327
28:62–29:13
D e u teronom y
315
Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be
left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.
“Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper
and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be
torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy. For the Lord will
scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other.
There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors
have known, gods made of wood and stone! There among those nations
you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart
to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. Your life will
constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure
if you will survive. In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And
in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you. Then the Lord will send
you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never
see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves,
but no one will buy you.”
These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make
with the Israelites while they were in the land of Moab, in addition to the
covenant he had made with them at Mount Sinai.
Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them, “You have seen
with your own eyes everything the Lord did in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to his whole c ountry—all the great tests of
strength, the miraculous signs, and the amazing wonders. But to this day
the Lord has not given you minds that understand, nor eyes that see, nor
ears that hear! For forty years I led you through the wilderness, yet your
clothes and sandals did not wear out. You ate no bread and drank no wine
or other alcoholic drink, but he provided for you so you would know that
he is the Lord your God.
“When we came here, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan
came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. We took their land and
gave it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to the h alf-tribe of Manasseh
as their grant of land.
“Therefore, obey the terms of this covenant so that you will prosper in
everything you do. All of you—tribal leaders, elders, officers, all the men
of Israel—are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God. Your
little ones and your wives are with you, as well as the foreigners living
among you who chop your wood and carry your water. You are standing
here today to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God. The Lord is
making this covenant, including the curses. By entering into the covenant
