But if you return to me and obey my commands, I will gather your people from the far ends of the earth. And I will bring them from captivity to where I have chosen to be worshiped.’
Moses told his father-in-law everything the Lord had done to the king and the Egyptians to help Israel. He told about all the problems they had faced along the way and how the Lord had saved them.
If you say when you make a promise, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ and you can say it in a truthful, honest, and right way, then the nations will be blessed by him, and they will praise him for what he has done.”
I also gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Do all that I command so that good things will happen to you.
After this, the people of Israel will return to the Lord their God and follow him and the king from David’s family. In the last days they will turn in fear to the Lord, and he will bless them.
People living far away will come and build the Temple of the Lord. Then you will know the Lord All-Powerful has sent me to you. This will happen if you completely obey the Lord your God.”
I began telling people that they should change their hearts and lives and turn to God and do things to show they really had changed. I told this first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem, and in every part of Judea, and also to the other people.
But you must obey the Lord your God by keeping all his commands and rules that are written in this Book of the Teachings. You must return to the Lord your God with your whole being.
Then I will become very angry at them, and I will leave them. I will turn away from them, and they will be destroyed. Many terrible things will happen to them. Then they will say, ‘It is because God is not with us that these terrible things are happening.’
Then when many troubles and terrible things happen to them, this song will testify against them, because the song will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they plan to do, even before I take them into the land I promised them.”
I know that after I die you will become completely evil. You will turn away from the commands I have given you. Terrible things will happen to you in the future when you do what the Lord says is evil, and you will make him angry with the idols you have made.”