Renewing the Covenant: A Serious Reminder (Deuteronomy 29:1–29)
As the people of Israel stood at the edge of the Promised Land, Moses gathered them together to deliver a powerful message. These were his final words before they entered a new chapter in their lives. He wasn’t giving them battle plans or travel advice—he was reminding them of something far more important: their relationship with God.
Remember What God Has Done
Moses began by reminding the people of everything God had done for them. They had seen miracles in Egypt, like the plagues that freed them from slavery. They had walked through the desert for 40 years, and yet their clothes and sandals didn’t wear out. They had food, water, and protection—God took care of them every step of the way.
This wasn’t just a history lesson. It was a reminder that God had been faithful, and now He wanted His people to stay faithful to Him.
A Fresh Commitment
Moses called on all the people—men, women, children, leaders, and even foreigners living among them—to stand together and renew their promise to God. They were making a covenant, a serious agreement to follow God and live by His ways.
This promise wasn’t just for the people standing there that day. Moses said it was also for their children, and their children’s children—for all future generations. God was inviting them into a lasting relationship that would shape their identity and their future.
Don’t Be Fooled
But Moses also gave a clear warning: Don’t think you can turn away from God and get away with it. Some people might hear the covenant and still choose to follow their own path. They might think, “I’ll be fine. I’ll do what I want.” But Moses warned that this kind of thinking leads to disaster.
God sees everything, even the hidden things. He knows what’s in our hearts. Turning away from Him—especially after all He’s done—has serious consequences.
What Happens If They Turn Away?
If the people chose to break their covenant with God and worship other gods, Moses said the land itself would suffer. It would become dry and lifeless, a sign to others that something had gone very wrong.
Other nations would look at the land and ask, “Why did this happen?” And the answer would be clear: “Because they abandoned the Lord, the God who saved them.”
Trusting God with What We Know—and Don’t Know
The chapter ends with a thoughtful reminder: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever.” This means there are some things only God knows, but what He has told us is enough to live by.
We don’t have to understand everything, but we are called to trust and obey.
Final Thoughts
Deuteronomy 29 is both a reminder and a challenge. It reminds us of God’s faithfulness and calls us to be faithful in return. It challenges us to take our relationship with God seriously—not just in words, but in how we live.
Like the Israelites, we stand at crossroads in life. And like them, we’re invited to walk with God—not just for our sake, but for those who come after us. The choice is ours.
Deuteronomy 29:1-29 (WEB)
29:1 These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. 2 Moses called to all Israel, and said to them:Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land; 3 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 But the LORD has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day. 5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not grown old on you, and your sandals have not grown old on your feet. 6 You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the LORD your God. 7 When you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we struck them. 8 We took their land, and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of the Manassites. 9 Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. 10 All of you stand today in the presence of the LORD your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, 11 your little ones, your wives, and the foreigners who are in the middle of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water, 12 that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you today, 13 that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he spoke to you and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 14 Neither do I make this covenant and this oath with you only, 15 but with those who stand here with us today before the LORD our God, and also with those who are not here with us today 16 (for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the middle of the nations through which you passed; 17 and you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them); 18 lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that produces bitter poison; 19 and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry. 20 The LORD will not pardon him, but then the LORD’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under the sky. 21 The LORD will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.22 The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick, 23 that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath. 24 Even all the nations will say, “Why has the LORD done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?”25 Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, 26 and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them. 27 Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book. 28 The LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.