Read Deuteronomy 28:1-29:9 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions:
Deu 28:1-14 {p} Blessings which follow obedience
Deu 28:15-68 {s} Curses which follow disobedience
Deu 29:1 {p} These are the words of the covenant
Deu 29:2-9 {p} Keep the words of this covenant for God can remove people from their land
chiastic structure:
1a) Deu 28:1-68 {p+s} Blessings for obedience + curses for disobedience;
1b) Deu 29:1 {p} These are the words of the covenant;
1c) Deu 29:2-4, You have seen all that the Lord did to Pharaoh, his servants, and his land (yet you do not have eyes to see);
central axis) Deu 29:5-6, I have cared for you forty years in this wilderness, that you may know I am YHVH your God;
2c) Deu 29:7-8, When Sihon and Og came out against us, we conquered them and took their land;
2b) Deu 29:9a, Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them;
2a) Deu 29:9b {p} That you may prosper in all that you do.
The blessings and curses follow along in the same pattern:
Blessed shall you be in the city + country, Deu 28:3 / Cursed shall you be in the city + country, Deu 28:16,
and so on through the paragraphs.
We choose which outcome, blessing or cursing, we will have over our lives, by our obedience with a heart of rejoicing (Deu 28:47, the normal state of the circumcised heart) or by our disdain for the commandments of YHVH. I know that men teach that the commandments of God have passed away. Beloved, I beg you, do not take your doctrine from the mouths of men, but from the mouth of God. Obeying Him does not save us – it does not provide for our spiritual life – but the purpose of our obedience, which adds nothing to God, is so that we may prosper in this life in all that we do. It does provide for our health, happiness, prosperity, and well- being in this life, on this side of heaven, as the 2A pair plainly states (and which is repeated over and over again in Deuteronomy and all of Torah, and elsewhere in the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation).
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