Page:JPS-1917-Universal.djvu/272

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29.17
DEUTERONOMY

those nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; 18and 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 stubbornness of my heart—that the watered be swept away with the dry'; 19the Lord will not be willing to pardon him, but then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall be kindled against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven; 20and the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law. 21And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses wherewith the Lord hath made it sick; 22and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger, and in His wrath; 23even all the nations shall say 'Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?' 24then men shall say: 'Because they forsook 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; 25and went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods that they knew not, and that He had not allotted unto them; 26therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book; 27and 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'.—28The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

30And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt bethink thyself among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, 2and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and hearken to His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; 3that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the peoples, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. 4If any of thine that are dispersed be in the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee. 5And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. 6And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. 7And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, that persecuted thee. 8And thou shalt return and hearken to the voice of the Lord, and do all His commandments which

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