Deuteronomy 29:10-15

29:10 You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God – the heads of your tribes,¹ your elders, your officials, every Israelite man, 29:11 your infants, your wives, and the² foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water – 29:12 so that you may enter by oath into the covenant the Lord your God is making with you today.³ 29:13 Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God,⁴ just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors⁵ Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29:14 It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant by oath, 29:15 but with whoever stands with us here today before the Lord our God as well as those not with us here today.⁶

Deuteronomy 29:25-26

29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship.⁷

¹tc Heb “your heads, your tribes.” The Syriac presupposes either “heads of your tribes” or “your heads, your judges,” etc. (reading שֹׁפְטֵכֶם [shofÿtekhem] for שִׁבְטֵיכֶם [shivtekhem]). Its comparative difficulty favors the originality of the MT reading. Cf. KJV “your captains of your tribes”; NRSV “the leaders of your tribes”; NLT “your tribal leaders.”

²tn Heb “your.”

³tn Heb “for you to pass on into the covenant of the Lord your God and into his oath, which the Lord your God is cutting with you today.”

⁴tn Heb “in order to establish you today to him for a people and he will be to you for God.” Verses 10-13 are one long sentence in Hebrew. The translation divides this into two sentences for stylistic reasons.

⁵tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 25).

⁶tn This is interpreted by some English versions as a reference to generations not yet born (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

⁷tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”