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, besides the covenant which he had 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 yourselves have seen all that the Lord hath done 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 proofs which thy eyes have seen, those great signs, and 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 gave you not a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until 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 did not fall worn out from off you, and thy shoe did not fall worn out from off 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 Bread have ye not eaten, and wine or strong drink have ye not drunk; in order that ye might understand 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, Sichon the king of Cheshbon, and 'Og the king of Bashan went 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 the Menassites.
We took/conquered their land and divided it among the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.
9 Keep ye 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 are standing this day, all of you, before the Lord your God; your heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, 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 the midst of 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 shouldst enter into the covenant of the Lord thy God, and into his oath of denunciation, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day.
[We are here] today to promise to keep this solemn agreement with Yahweh.
13 In order to raise thee up today unto himself for a people, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath spoken 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 And not with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath;
This agreement is not only with you.
15 But with him that is standing here with us this day before the Lord our God, and 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 dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we passed through the nations through which ye have passed;
“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 saw their abominations, and their idols, of wood and stone, silver and gold, which they had with them: )
In those countries they saw those disgusting idols made of wood and stone and [decorated with] silver and gold.
18 So that there may not be among you a man, or a woman, or a family, or a tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God, to go to serve the gods of these nations; that there may not be among you a root that beareth abundantly poison 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 might come to pass, when he heareth the words of this denunciation, that he would bless himself in his heart, saying, There will be peace unto me, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart; in order that the indulgence of the passions may appease the thirst [for them]:
“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 pardon him; but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and there shall rest upon him all the curse that is written in this book; and the Lord will blot out his name from under the heavens.
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 will single him out unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the denunciations of the covenant which is 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 And the latest generation, your children that will rise up after you, and the stranger that will come from a far land, will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its sufferings with which the Lord hath smitten 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 [That] the whole soil thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning waste, which is not sown, and beareth not, and in which no kind of grass springeth up, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboyim, 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 the nations will say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? whence 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 shall men say, Because they had forsaken the covenant of the Lord, the 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 And they went and served other gods, and bowed down to them, gods which they knew not, and which he had not assigned 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 the entire curse that is 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 plucked them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and he 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 publicly known belong unto us and to our children for ever, to 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.”
