Deuteronomy 29
International Children’s Bible
The Agreement in Moab
29 The Lord commanded Moses to make an agreement with the Israelites in Moab. This agreement was in addition to the agreement he had made with them at Mount Sinai.
2 Moses called all the Israelites together. And he said to them:
You have seen everything the Lord did to the king of Egypt. You saw what he did to the king’s leaders and to the whole country. 3 With your own eyes you saw the great troubles, signs and miracles. 4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands. You don’t really understand what you see with your eyes or hear with your ears. 5 The Lord led you through the desert for 40 years. During that time neither your clothes nor sandals wore out. 6 You ate no bread. You drank no wine or beer. This was so you would understand that he is the Lord your God.
7 You came to this place. Then Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight us. But we defeated them. 8 We captured their land. And we gave it to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the eastern half-tribe of Manasseh to own.
9 You must carefully obey everything in this agreement. Then you will succeed in everything you do. 10 Today you are all standing here before the Lord your God. Here are your leaders and important men. Your elders, officers and all the other men of Israel are here. 11 Here are your wives and children and the foreigners who live among you. They chop your wood and carry your water. 12 You are all here to enter into an agreement and a promise with the Lord your God. The Lord is making this agreement with you today. 13 This will make you today the Lord’s own people. He will be your God. This is what he told you. He promised it to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 14 But the Lord is not just making this agreement and its promises with you. 15 You are standing here before the Lord your God today. But he is also making it with those who are not here today.
16 You know how we lived in Egypt. You know how we passed through the countries when we came here. 17 You saw their hated idols made of wood, stone, silver and gold. 18 Make sure no man, woman, family group or tribe among you leaves the Lord. Don’t let them go and serve the gods of those nations. That would be like a plant that grows bitter, poisonous fruit.
19 That kind of person might hear these curses. But he blesses himself. And he thinks, “I will be safe. I will continue doing what I want to do.” That person might destroy all of your land, both wet and dry. 20 The Lord will not forgive that person. His anger will be like a burning fire against that man. All the curses written in this book will come on him. And the Lord will destroy any memory of him on the earth. 21 The Lord will separate him from all the tribes of Israel for punishment. All the curses of the agreement will happen to him. They are written in this Book of the Teachings.
22 Your children who will come after you will see this. And foreigners from faraway lands will see this. They will see the disasters that come to this land. And they will see the diseases the Lord will send on it. They will say, 23 “The land is nothing but burning cinders and salt. Nothing is planted. Nothing grows. Nothing blooms. It is like Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboiim. The Lord destroyed them because he was very angry.” 24 All the other nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done this to the land? Why is he so angry?”
25 And the answer will be, “It is because the people broke the agreement of the Lord, the God of their ancestors. He made it with them when he brought them out of Egypt. 26 They went and served other gods. They bowed down to gods they did not even know. The Lord did not allow that. 27 So the Lord became very angry at the land. And he brought all the curses on it that are written in this book. 28 The Lord became angry and furious with them. So he took them out of their land. And he put them in another land where they are today.”
29 There are some things the Lord our God has kept secret. But there are some things he has let us know. These things belong to us and our children forever. It is so we will do everything in these teachings.
Deuteronomy 29
King James Version
29 These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
2 And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;
3 The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
4 Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.
6 Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the Lord your God.
7 And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:
8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.
10 Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11 Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
12 That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day:
13 That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15 But with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:
16 (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
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 that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that 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 Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore 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 worshipped 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:
28 And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
