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APRIL 3
shall have peace, even though I follow the
dictates of my heart’—as though the drunk-
ard could be included with the sober.
29:4 the LORD has not given you...eyes to 20 “The LORD would not spare him; for then
see. In spite of all they had experienced (vv. the anger of the LORD and His jealousy would
2,3), Israel was spiritually blind to the signifi- burn against that man, and every curse that is
cance of what the Lord had done for them, written in this book would settle on him, and
lacking spiritual understanding, even as the LORD would blot out his name from under
Moses was speaking. This spiritual blindness heaven. And the LORD would separate him
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of Israel continues to the present day (Rom. from all the tribes of Israel for adversity,
11:8), and it will not be reversed until Israel’s according to all the curses of the covenant that
future day of salvation (see Rom. 11:25–27). are written in this Book of the Law, so that
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The Lord had not given them an understand- the coming generation of your children who
ing heart, simply because the people had not rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes
penitently sought it (see 2 Chr. 7:14).
from a far land, would say, when they see the
plagues of that land and the sicknesses which
your feet. You have not eaten bread, nor have the LORD has laid on it:
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you drunk wine or similar drink, that you may 23 ‘The whole land is brimstone, salt, and
know that I am the LORD your God. And when burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor
7
you came to this place, Sihon king of Heshbon does any grass grow there, like the overthrow
and Og king of Bashan came out against us to of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim,
battle, and we conquered them. We took their which the LORD overthrew in His anger and
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land and gave it as an inheritance to the His wrath.’ All nations would say, ‘Why has
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Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to half the the LORD done so to this land? What does the
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tribe of Manasseh. Therefore keep the words heat of this great anger mean?’ Then people
of this covenant, and do them, that you may would say: ‘Because they have forsaken the
prosper in all that you do. covenant of the LORD God of their fathers,
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“All of you stand today before the LORD which He made with them when He brought
your God: your leaders and your tribes and them out of the land of Egypt; for they went
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your elders and your officers, all the men of and served other gods and worshiped them,
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Israel, your little ones and your wives—also gods that they did not know and that He had
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the stranger who is in your camp, from the not given to them. Then the anger of the LORD
one who cuts your wood to the one who draws was aroused against this land, to bring on it
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your water— 12 that you may enter into every curse that is written in this book. And
covenant with the LORD your God, and into His the LORD uprooted them from their land in
oath, which the LORD your God makes with anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and
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you today, that He may establish you today as cast them into another land, as it is this day.’
a people for Himself, and that He may be God 29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our
to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just God, but those things which are revealed
as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, belong to us and to our children forever, that
Isaac, and Jacob. we may do all the words of this law.
14 “I make this covenant and this oath, not “Now it shall come to pass, when all
with you alone, but with him who stands here 30 these things come upon you, the bless-
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with us today before the LORD our God, as well ing and the curse which I have set before you,
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as with him who is not here with us today (for and you call them to mind among all the
you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt
and that we came through the nations which
you passed by, and you saw their abomina-
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tions and their idols which were among
them—wood and stone and silver and gold); 29:29 The secret things…those things which
18 so that there may not be among you man or are revealed. That which is revealed included
woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns the law with its promises and threats. Conse-
away today from the LORD our God, to go and quently, that which is hidden only can refer to
serve the gods of these nations, and that there the specific way in which God will carry out
may not be among you a root bearing bitter- His will in the future, which is revealed in His
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ness or wormwood; and so it may not hap- Word and completed in His great work of sal-
pen, when he hears the words of this curse, vation, in spite of the apostasy of His people.
that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I
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