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God Teaches His Law to a New Generation
293
Blessings Conditional
Still the great leader was filled with fear that the people would
stray from God. In a lofty and thrilling address he set before them
the blessings that would be theirs on condition of obedience, and the
curses that would follow transgression:
“If you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe
carefully all His commandments which I command you this day,”
“blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the
country,” in “the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground
and the increase of your herds. ... Blessed shall be your basket and
your kneading bowl. ... The Lord will cause your enemies who
rise against you to be defeated before your face. ... The Lord will
command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which
you set your hand.”
“But it shall come to pass, if you do not ... observe carefully all
His commandments and His statutes which I command you today,
that all these curses will come upon you,” “and you shall become
an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where
the Lord shall drive you.” “Then the Lord will scatter you among
all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other. ... And among
those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot
have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a trembling
heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt
before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of
life. In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at
evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’”
By the Spirit of Inspiration, looking far down the ages, Moses
pictured the terrible scenes of Israel’s final overthrow as a nation and
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the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Rome. The horrible
sufferings of the people centuries later during the siege of Jerusalem
under Titus were vividly portrayed: “They shall besiege you at all
your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust,
come down throughout all your land. ... You shall eat the fruit of
your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters ... in the
siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.”
“The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture
to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness