Deuteronomy 29:23-28

29:23 The whole land will be covered with brimstone, salt, and burning debris; it will not be planted nor will it sprout or produce grass. It will resemble the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger. ¹  29:24 Then all the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger ²  all about?” 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. ³  29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses ⁴  written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.”

¹ tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” This construction is a hendiadys intended to intensify the emotion.

² tn Heb “this great burning of anger”; KJV “the heat of this great anger.”

³ tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”

⁴ tn Heb “the entire curse.”