Deuteronomy 29

1 These [are] the words of the covenant which YHWH has commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, apart from 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 calls to all Israel and says to them, “You have seen all that which YHWH has done before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to 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 trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders.

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

4 And YHWH has not given to you a heart to know, 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 cause you to go in a wilderness [for] forty years; your garments have not been consumed from off you, and your shoe has not worn away from off your 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 you have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine and strong drink, so that you know that I [am] your God YHWH.

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 you come to this place, and Sihon king of Heshbon—also Og king of Bashan—comes out to meet us to battle, and we strike 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 take their land, and give it for an inheritance to the Reubenite, and to the Gadite, and to the half of the tribe of the Manassite;

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

9 and you have kept the words of this covenant and done them, so that you cause all that you do to prosper.

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

10 You are standing today, all of you, before your God YHWH: your heads, your tribes, your elderly, and your authorities, every man 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 infants, your wives, and your sojourner who [is] in the midst of your camps, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your 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 for your passing over into the covenant of your God YHWH, and into His oath which your God YHWH is making with you today,

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

13 in order to establish you to Himself for a people today, and He Himself is your God, as He has spoken to you, and as He has sworn to your 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 I am not making this covenant and this oath with you alone,

This agreement is not only with you.

15 but with him who is here with us, standing before our God YHWH today, and with him who is not here with us today,

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

16 for you have known how you dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we passed by through the midst of the nations which you have 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 you see their abominations, and their idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, which [are] with them,

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

18 lest there be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart is turning from our God YHWH today, to go to serve the gods of those nations, lest there be in you a root bearing the fruit of 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 has been, in his hearing the words of this oath, that he has blessed himself in his heart, saying, I have peace, though I go on in the stubbornness of my heart—in order to sweep away the watered with the thirsty.

“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 YHWH is not willing to be propitious to him, for then the anger of YHWH smokes, also His zeal, against that man, and all the oath which is written in this scroll has lain down on him, and YHWH has blotted 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 YHWH has separated him for calamity out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the oaths of the covenant which is written in this Scroll 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 latter generation of your sons who rise after you, and the stranger who comes in from a far-off land, have said, when they have seen the strokes of that land and its sicknesses which YHWH has sent into 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 The whole land is burned [with] brimstone and salt, it is not sown, nor does it shoot up, nor does any herb go up on it there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which YHWH overturned in His anger and in His fury.

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 Indeed, all the nations have said, Why has YHWH done thus to this land? Why 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 And they have said, Because that they have forsaken the covenant of YHWH, God of their fathers, which He made with them in His bringing them 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 go and serve other gods, and bow themselves to them—gods which they have not known, and which He has not apportioned to 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 YHWH burns against that land, to bring in on it all the reviling that is written in this scroll,

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 YHWH plucks them from off their ground in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath, and casts them into another land, as [at] 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 things hidden [belong] to our God YHWH, and the things revealed [belong] to us and to our sons for all time, 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.”