3. You saw the great troubles he gave them. You saw the miracles and amazing things he did.
4. But even today, you still don’t understand what happened. The Lord has not let you really understand what you saw and heard.
5. He led you through the desert for 40 years, and in all that time, your clothes and sandals did not wear out.
6. You did not have any food with you. You did not have any wine or anything else to drink. But he took care of you so that you would understand that he is the Lord your God.
7. “You came to this place, and King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out to fight against us. But we defeated them.
8. Then we took their land and gave it to the people in the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to half the tribe of Manasseh.
9. If you obey all the commands in this agreement, you will continue to succeed in everything you do.
20-21. The Lord will not forgive them for that. No, the Lord will be angry and upset with them and punish them. The Lord will separate them from the tribes of Israel. He will completely destroy them. All the curses that are written in this book will happen to them. They are a part of the agreement that is written in this Book of Teachings.
22. “In the future, your descendants and foreigners from faraway countries will see how the land has been ruined. They will see the diseases that the Lord has brought to it.
23. All the land will be useless—destroyed by burning sulfur and covered with salt. The land will have nothing planted in it. Nothing will be growing—not even weeds. The land will be destroyed like Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, the cities the Lord destroyed when he was very angry.
24. “All the other nations will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land? Why was he so angry?’
25. The answer will be, ‘This happened because the Israelites left the agreement of the Lord, the God of their ancestors. They stopped following the agreement he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.
26. The Israelites started serving other gods—gods they never worshiped before. The Lord told his people not to worship those gods.
27. That is why the Lord became very angry with the people of this land. So he brought to them all the curses that are written in this book.
28. The Lord became very angry and upset with them. So he took them out of their land. He put them in another land, where they are today.’
29. “There are some things that the Lord our God has kept secret. Only he knows these things. But he told us about some things. And these teachings are for us and our descendants forever. And we must obey all the commands in that law.