“ Say to them,‘ This is what the Lord says: If you will not listen to me and obey my word I have given you,

你要对他们说，耶和华如此说：‘你们若不听从我，不遵行我设立在你们面前的律法，

你要对他们说，耶和华如此说：‘你们若不听从我，不遵行我在你们面前所设立的律法，

你要对他们说，耶和华如此说：‘你们若不听从我，不遵行我在你们面前所设立的律法，

你要告诉他们，耶和华这样说，“如果你们不听从我的话，不遵行我赐给你们的律法，

你要对他们说：耶和华这样说：如果你们不听从我，不遵行我设立在你们面前的律法，

你要對他們說，耶和華如此說：『你們若不聽從我，不遵行我設立在你們面前的律法，

你要對他們說，耶和華如此說：『你們若不聽從我，不遵行我在你們面前所設立的律法，

你要對他們說，耶和華如此說：『你們若不聽從我，不遵行我在你們面前所設立的律法，

你要告訴他們，耶和華這樣說，「如果你們不聽從我的話，不遵行我賜給你們的律法，

你要對他們說：耶和華這樣說：如果你們不聽從我，不遵行我設立在你們面前的律法，

你要對他們說：「永恆主這麼說：你們若不聽從我，不按我的律法、我在你們面前所立的律法、而行，

爾其告之曰、耶和華云、如爾不聽我、不遵我所示爾之法律、

爾當告之曰、耶和華云、我數遣我僕先知、告爾、示爾律例、爾常不聽、後仍不聽從、

爾當告之曰、主如是云、我屢屢原文作每晨遣我僕眾先知警教爾、至今爾不聽從、如仍不聽其言、不遵我所設於爾前之法、

Say to them,‘ This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you,

Tell them,‘ The Lord says,“ Listen to me. Obey my law that I gave you.

You shall say to them,‘ Thus says the Lord: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you,

You are to say to them,‘ This is what the LORD says: If you do not listen to me by living according to my instruction that I set before you

And you shall say to them,‘ This is what the Lord says:“ If you do not listen to Me, to walk in My Law which I have set before you,

And you shall say to them,‘ Thus says the Lord:“ If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you,

And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah: If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you,

You are to say to them: This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to Me by living according to My instruction that I set before you

And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you,

Tell them that the LORD says,‘ You must obey me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws.

You shall tell them,“ Yahweh says:‘ If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you,

“ But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the commands and decrees I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods,

To this very hour you have shown no remorse or reverence. No one has chosen to follow my word and the decrees I gave to you and your ancestors before you.

But if you turn away and refuse to listen, you will be devoured by the sword of your enemies. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

And what great nation has decrees and regulations as righteous and fair as this body of instructions that I am giving you today?

“ But despite all this, they were disobedient and rebelled against you. They turned their backs on your Law, they killed your prophets who warned them to return to you, and they committed terrible blasphemies.So you handed them over to their enemies, who made them suffer. But in their time of trouble they cried to you, and you heard them from heaven. In your great mercy, you sent them liberators who rescued them from their enemies.“ But as soon as they were at peace, your people again committed evil in your sight, and once more you let their enemies conquer them. Yet whenever your people turned and cried to you again for help, you listened once more from heaven. In your wonderful mercy, you rescued them many times!“ You warned them to return to your Law, but they became proud and obstinate and disobeyed your commands. They did not follow your regulations, by which people will find life if only they obey. They stubbornly turned their backs on you and refused to listen.In your love, you were patient with them for many years. You sent your Spirit, who warned them through the prophets. But still they wouldn’t listen! So once again you allowed the peoples of the land to conquer them.

“ However, if you do not listen to me or obey all these commands,and if you break my covenant by rejecting my decrees, treating my regulations with contempt, and refusing to obey my commands,I will punish you. I will bring sudden terrors upon you— wasting diseases and burning fevers that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them.I will turn against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will run even when no one is chasing you!“ And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins.I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze.All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.“ If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins.I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.“ And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me,then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins.I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you will be handed over to your enemies.I will destroy your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied.“ If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me,then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins.Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols, and I will despise you.I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me.Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled at what they see.I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins.Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed.As long as the land lies in ruins, it will enjoy the rest you never allowed it to take every seventh year while you lived in it.“ And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you.Though no one is chasing you, you will stumble over each other as though fleeing from a sword. You will have no power to stand up against your enemies.You will die among the foreign nations and be devoured in the land of your enemies.Those of you who survive will waste away in your enemies’ lands because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.“ But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me.When I have turned their hostility back on them and brought them to the land of their enemies, then at last their stubborn hearts will be humbled, and they will pay for their sins.Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.“ But despite all this, I will not utterly reject or despise them while they are in exile in the land of their enemies. I will not cancel my covenant with them by wiping them out, for I am the Lord their God.For their sakes I will remember my ancient covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”These are the decrees, regulations, and instructions that the Lord gave through Moses on Mount Sinai as evidence of the relationship between himself and the Israelites.

Who will hear these lessons from the past and see the ruin that awaits you in the future?Who allowed Israel to be robbed and hurt? It was the Lord, against whom we sinned, for the people would not walk in his path, nor would they obey his law.Therefore, he poured out his fury on them and destroyed them in battle. They were enveloped in flames, but they still refused to understand. They were consumed by fire, but they did not learn their lesson.

I am making this covenant with you so that no one among you— no man, woman, clan, or tribe— will turn away from the Lord our God to worship these gods of other nations, and so that no root among you bears bitter and poisonous fruit.“ Those who hear the warnings of this curse should not congratulate themselves, thinking,‘ I am safe, even though I am following the desires of my own stubborn heart.’ This would lead to utter ruin!The Lord will never pardon such people. Instead his anger and jealousy will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will come down on them, and the Lord will erase their names from under heaven.The Lord will separate them from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out on them all the curses of the covenant recorded in this Book of Instruction.“ Then the generations to come, both your own descendants and the foreigners who come from distant lands, will see the devastation of the land and the diseases the Lord inflicts on it.They will exclaim,‘ The whole land is devastated by sulfur and salt. It is a wasteland with nothing planted and nothing growing, not even a blade of grass. It is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger.’“ And all the surrounding nations will ask,‘ Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why was he so angry?’“ And the answer will be,‘ This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.Instead, they turned away to serve and worship gods they had not known before, gods that were not from the Lord.That is why the Lord’s anger has burned against this land, bringing down on it every curse recorded in this book.In great anger and fury the Lord uprooted his people from their land and banished them to another land, where they still live today!’

The Lord said to Moses,“ You are about to die and join your ancestors. After you are gone, these people will begin to worship foreign gods, the gods of the land where they are going. They will abandon me and break my covenant that I have made with them.Then my anger will blaze forth against them. I will abandon them, hiding my face from them, and they will be devoured. Terrible trouble will come down on them, and on that day they will say,‘ These disasters have come down on us because God is no longer among us!’At that time I will hide my face from them on account of all the evil they commit by worshiping other gods.

For I will bring them into the land I swore to give their ancestors— a land flowing with milk and honey. There they will become prosperous, eat all the food they want, and become fat. But they will begin to worship other gods; they will despise me and break my covenant.

“ But Israel soon became fat and unruly; the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed! Then they abandoned the God who had made them; they made light of the Rock of their salvation.They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods; they provoked his fury with detestable deeds.They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God, to gods they had not known before, to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors had never feared.You neglected the Rock who had fathered you; you forgot the God who had given you birth.“ The Lord saw this and drew back, provoked to anger by his own sons and daughters.He said,‘ I will abandon them; then see what becomes of them. For they are a twisted generation, children without integrity.They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God; they have provoked my anger with their useless idols. Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people; I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles.For my anger blazes forth like fire and burns to the depths of the grave. It devours the earth and all its crops and ignites the foundations of the mountains.I will heap disasters upon them and shoot them down with my arrows.I will weaken them with famine, burning fever, and deadly disease. I will send the fangs of wild beasts and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust.Outside, the sword will bring death, and inside, terror will strike both young men and young women, both infants and the aged.

So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.

“ But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the decrees and commands I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods,then I will uproot the people from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honor my name. I will make it an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations.

“ But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:Your towns and your fields will be cursed.Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be cursed.Your children and your crops will be cursed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be cursed.Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be cursed.“ The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me.The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy.The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die.The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron.The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.“ The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.“ The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.“ You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit.Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you.You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them.A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment.You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you.The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.“ The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone!You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.“ You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops.You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines.You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens.You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity.Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.“ The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker.They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!“ If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed.These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever.If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received,you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.“ The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand,a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death.They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land— the walls you trusted to protect you— are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you.“ The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you.The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children.He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring— the flesh of one of his own children— because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.The most tender and delicate woman among you— so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot— will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter.She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.“ If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God,then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick.He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief.The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed.Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.“ Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy.For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair.Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.In the morning you will say,‘ If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say,‘ If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you.Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”

This is the body of instruction that Moses presented to the Israelites.

you must be careful to obey all the decrees and regulations I am giving you today.

But as surely as the Lord your God has given you the good things he promised, he will also bring disaster on you if you disobey him. He will completely destroy you from this good land he has given you.If you break the covenant of the Lord your God by worshiping and serving other gods, his anger will burn against you, and you will quickly vanish from the good land he has given you.”