The Wilderness Years

These are the wordes of the couenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the lande of Moab beside the couenant which hee had made with them in Horeb.

And Moses called all Israel, and said vnto them, Ye haue seene all that the Lord did before your eyes in the lande of Egypt vnto Pharaoh and vnto all his seruantes, and vnto all his lande,

The great tentations which thine eyes haue seene, those great miracles and wonders:

Yet the Lord hath not giuen you an heart to perceiue, and eyes to see, and eares to heare, vnto this day.

And I haue led you fourty yere in the wildernesse: your clothes are not waxed olde vpon you, neyther is thy shooe waxed olde vpon thy foote.

Ye haue eaten no bread, neither drunke wine, nor strong drinke, that ye might know how that I am the Lord your God.

After, ye came vnto this place, and Sihon King of Heshbon, and Og King of Bashan came out against vs vnto battell, and we slewe them,

And tooke their lande, and gaue it for an inheritance vnto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the halfe tribe of Manasseh.

Keepe therefore the wordes of this couenant and doe them, that ye may prosper in all that ye shall doe.

Ye stand this day euery one of you before the Lord your God: your heads of your tribes, your Elders and your officers, eue al ye me of Israel:

Your children, your wiues, and thy stranger that is in thy campe from the hewer of thy wood, vnto the drawer of thy water,

That thou shouldest passe into the couenant of the Lord thy God, and into his othe which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day,

For to establish thee this day a people vnto him selfe, and that he may be vnto thee a God, as he hath said vnto thee, and as he hath sworne vnto thy fathers, Abraham, Izhak, and Iaakob.

Neither make I this couenant, and this othe with you onely,

But aswel with him that standeth here with vs this day before the Lord our God, as with him that is not here with vs this day.

For ye knowe, how we haue dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we passed thorowe the middes of the nations, which ye passed by.

And ye haue seene their abominations and their idoles (wood, and stone, siluer and golde) which were among them,

That there should not be among you man nor woman, nor familie, nor tribe, which should turne his heart away this day from the Lord our God, to goe and serue the gods of these nations, and that there shoulde not be among you any roote that bringeth forth gall and wormewood,

So that when he heareth the words of this curse, he blesse him selfe in his heart, saying, I shall haue peace, although I walke according to the stubburnes of mine owne heart, thus adding drunkennesse to thirst.

The Lord will not be mercifull vnto him, but then the wrath of the Lord and his ielousie shall smoke against that man, and euery curse that is written in this booke, shall light vpon him, and the Lord shall put out his name from vnder heauen,

And the Lord shall separate him vnto euil out of all the tribes of Israel, according vnto all the curses of the couenant, that is written in the booke of this Lawe.

So that the generatio to come, euen your children, that shall rise vp after you, and the stranger, that shall come from a farre lande, shall say, when they shall see the plagues of this lande, and the diseases thereof, wherewith the Lord shall smite it:

(For all that land shall burne with brimstone and salt: it shall not be sowen, nor bring forth, nor any grasse shall growe therein, like as in the ouerthrowing of Sodom, and Gomorah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord ouerthrewe in his wrath and in his anger)

Then shall all nations say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus vnto this lande? how fierce is this great wrath?

And they shall answere, Because they haue forsaken the couenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he had made with them, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt,