15. It is for those of you who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God and also for those who are not here today.
16. You know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through other countries on our way here.
17. You saw their disgusting gods and idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold.
18. Make sure there is no man, woman, family, or tribe among you today who turns from the Lord our God to worship the gods of those nations. Make sure that no one among you is the source of this kind of bitter poison.
19. Someone may hear the conditions of this promise. He may think that he is so blessed that he can say, “I’ll be safe even if I go my own stubborn way. After all, ⌊the Lord would never⌋ sweep away well-watered ground along with dry ground.”
20. The Lord will never be willing to forgive that person, because the Lord’s burning anger will smolder against him. All the curses described in this book will happen to him. The Lord will erase ⌊every memory of⌋ that person’s name from the earth.
21. And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster based on all the conditions of the promise written in this Book of the Teachings.
22. Then the next generation of your children and foreigners who come from distant countries will see the plagues that have happened in this land and the diseases the Lord sent here.
23. They will see all the soil poisoned with sulfur and salt. Nothing will be planted. Nothing will be growing. There will be no plants in sight. It will be as desolate as Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, cities the Lord destroyed in fierce anger.
24. Then all the other nations in the world will ask, “Why has the Lord done this to their land? Why is he so angry?”
25. The answer will be, “Because they abandoned the promise of the Lord God of their ancestors. He made this promise to them when he brought them out of Egypt.