is to say, "to walk after Jahveh, and
to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with
all their hearts and all their souls, to confirm the words of this
covenant that were written in this book." The final words, which
lingered in every ear, contained imprecations of even more terrible
and gloomy import than those with which the prophets had been wont to
threaten Judah. "If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jahveh thy
God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I
command thee this day; then all these curses shall come upon thee, and
overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou
be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.
Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, the
increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock.... Thou shalt betroth
a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build an house,
and shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not
use the fruit thereof. Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and
thou shalt not eat thereof.... Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given
unto another people; and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing
for them all the day: and there shall be naught in the power of thine
hand.... Jahveh shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end
of the earth, as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not
understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shalt not regard the
person of the old, nor show favour to the young." This enemy was to burn
and destroy everything: "and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates,
throughout all thy land, which Jahveh thy God hath given thee. And thou
shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy
daughters... in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall straiten
thee." Those who escape must depart into captivity, and there endure for
many a long year the tortures of direst slavery; "thy life shall hang
in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have
none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it
were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for
the fear of thine heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of
thine eyes which thou shalt see."*

* Deut. xxviii. The two sets of imprecations (xxvii.,
xxviii.) which terminate the actual work are both of later
reda