Deuteronomy 29

1 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.

These are the things that the Israelis were required to do to keep the agreement that Yahweh was making with them. Moses/I commanded them to keep this agreement [when they/we were] in the Moab region [on the east side of the Jordan River]. This was in addition to the agreement that Yahweh had made with them/us at Sinai [Mountain].

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;

Moses/I summoned all the Israeli people and said to them, “You saw [SYN] for yourselves what Yahweh did to the king of Egypt and to his officials and to his entire country.

3 The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:

You [SYN] saw all the plagues [that Yahweh caused them to experience], and all the various miracles [DOU] [that Yahweh performed].

4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

But until now, Yahweh has not enabled you to understand [the meaning of] all that you have seen and heard.

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.

For 40 years Yahweh has led you while you traveled/walked through the desert. During that time, your clothes and your sandals have not worn out.

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.

You did not have bread to eat or wine or other fermented/strong drinks to drink, but Yahweh [took care of you], in order that you would know that he is 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:

“And when we came to this place, Sihon, the king who ruled in Heshbon [city], and Og, the king who ruled the Bashan [region], came [with their armies] to attack us, but we defeated 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.

We took/conquered their land and divided it among the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.

9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

“So faithfully keep all of this agreement, in order that you will be successful in everything that you 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,

Today all of us are standing in the presence of Yahweh our God. The leaders of all our tribes, our elders, our officials, all you Israeli men,

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:

your wives, your children, and the foreigners who live among you and cut wood for you and carry water for you, are here.

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:

[We are here] today to promise to keep this solemn agreement with Yahweh.

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.

[He is making this agreement with you] in order to confirm that you are his people, and that he is your God. This agreement is what he promised you, and which is what he vowed to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;

This agreement is not only with you.

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:

He is making this agreement with us [who are here today] and also with our descendants who are not yet born.

16 (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;

“You remember [the things that our ancestors suffered] in Egypt, and how they traveled through the land that belonged to other nations [after they came out of Egypt].

17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which [were] among them: )

In those countries they saw those disgusting idols made of wood and stone and [decorated with] silver and gold.

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;

So be sure that no man or woman or family or tribe that is here [today] turns away from Yahweh our God, to worship/serve the gods of those nations. Doing that would be like a root [of a plant that would grow] among you and bear poisonous and bitter fruit [MET].

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:

“Be sure that no one here today who hears this agreement thinks, ‘Everything will go well with me, even if I stubbornly do what I want to.’ If you are stubborn like that, the result will be that Yahweh will eventually get rid of all of you, both good people and evil people [MET].

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.

Yahweh will not forgive anyone who is [stubborn] like that. Instead, he will be extremely angry [DOU] with that person, and that person will experience all the curses that I have told you about, until Yahweh gets rid of that person and his family [IDM].

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:

From all the tribes of Israel, Yahweh will separate that individual. Yahweh will cause him to experience all the disasters that I have listed in the agreement that states the things that Yahweh will do to curse [those who disobey] the laws [that I have written] in this scroll/book.

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;

“In the future, your descendants and people from other countries will see the disasters and the illnesses that Yahweh has caused to happen to you.

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:

They will see that all your land has been ruined by burning sulfur and salt. Nothing will have been planted. Not even weeds will grow there. Your land will resemble Sodom and Gomorrah [cities], and Admah and Zeboiim [cities], which Yahweh destroyed when he was very angry [DOU] [with the people who lived there].

24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what [meaneth] the heat of this great anger?

And the people from those other nations will ask, ‘Why did Yahweh do this to this land? Why was he very angry [with the people who lived here]?’

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:

“Then other people will reply, ‘It is because they refused to keep the agreement that Yahweh, the God whom their ancestors [worshiped], had made with them when he brought them out 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:

Instead, they served/worshiped other gods that they had never worshiped before, gods that Yahweh had told them not to worship.

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:

So, Yahweh became very angry with the Israeli people in this land, and he caused them to experience all the disasters that their leader warned them about.

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.

Yahweh became extremely angry [DOU] with them and took/yanked them [MET] out of their land and banished them into another land, and they are still there.’

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.

“[There are some] things that Yahweh our God has (kept secret/not revealed), but he has revealed his laws to us, and [he expects] us and our descendants to obey them forever.”