Deuteronomy Chapter 29

Renewal of the Covenant

¹ Yahveh told Moses to make this covenant with Israel in Moab besides the covenant he made with them at Horeb/Sinai. ² Moses called Israel together and said,

            “You’ve seen what Yahveh did in Egypt to Pharaoh, his officials, and his land. ³ You saw the great trials, signs, and wonders. ⁴ Yet he still hasn’t given you a heart to know, eyes to see, or ears to hear. ⁵ I’ve been leading you for 40 years in the desert. Your clothes and sandals haven’t worn out. ⁶ You didn’t eat bread or drink wine or alcohol, but he provided for you so you would know he’s Yahveh your God. ⁷ When you got here, Sihon and Og came out to meet us, but we defeated them. ⁸ We gave their land to Reuben, Gad, and the Manasseh half-tribe. ⁹ So keep this covenant so you can prosper in everything you do.

¹⁰ “You’re standing today in Yahveh’s presence: your chiefs, tribes, elders, officers, all the men in Israel, ¹¹ your children and wives, foreigners in your camps from the ones that chop your wood to the ones that draw your water. ¹² You’re standing here to enter the covenant with Yahveh and into the oath he’s taking with you today ¹³ to establish you as his people and himself as your God—like he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.                                                

Deut 29:1-13

¹⁴ “It’s not just with you that he’s making this covenant and taking this oath. ¹⁵ It’s with the ones that aren’t standing here yet. ( ¹⁶ You know how we lived in Egypt, and how we passed through the nations. ¹⁷ You’ve seen their detestable things and their idols made out of wood, stone, silver, and gold.) ¹⁸ He’s making this covenant so there won’t be any man or woman, family or tribe, whose heart turns away from him to serve those nations’ gods. He’s doing it so there won’t be among you a root that bears bitter, poisonous fruit, ¹⁹ or anyone that gloats with this curse, ‘I have peace though I’m living in stubbornness to destroy the watered land with the dry.’ ²⁰ Yahveh will never forgive such people. His anger and jealousy will burn against them. Every curse in this scroll will lie on them, and he’ll erase their names from under the sky. ²¹ He’ll single them out for adversity. Deut 29:14-21     

²² “Your future generations and the foreigners from distant lands will see the plagues and diseases Yahveh inflicts on this land. They’ll say, ²³ ‘This whole land is sulfur and salt, a burning wasteland, unsown, unproductive, and without vegetation. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which he overthrew.’ ²⁴ The nations will ask, ‘Why’d Yahveh do that to it? Why’s he so angry?’ ²⁵ People will answer, ‘Because they forsook his covenant with them and their ancestors when he brought them out of Egypt. ²⁶ They served other gods he hadn’t given them. ²⁷ So his anger burned against their land, and he brought on it every curse in this scroll. ²⁸ He uprooted them and threw them into other lands, like they are now.’

²⁹ “The secret things belong to Yahveh, but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants permanently so we can observe everything in this Law.

Deut 29:22-29