| Deuteronomy 4:26
| I call this day heaven and earth to witness, that you shall quickly perish out of the land, which, when you have passed over the Jordan, you shall possess. You shall not dwell therein long, but the Lord will destroy you,
| And earth, or all their rational inhabitants. (St. Jerome and St. Basil in Isa. 1:2.) Moses conjures the Israelites, by all that is most sacred, to continue faithful. He speaks with the greatest earnestness, as he does again, chap. 32:1. (Calmet) --- He makes use of a sort of oath, by the creatures, in which God shines forth. (Menochius) --- Destroy you. He will take from you that delightful country, though he will save a remnant of you out of the captivity of Babylon, and in the latter days, ver. 31. The Jews, in the promised land, were almost always prone to idolatry; till God severely chastised them by the hands of the Babylonians. Since that time, few of them have willingly yielded to the worship of idols, though some have fallen by compulsion, as we read, Daniel iii., and 1 Machabees 1:53., and 2:16. Jeremias 5:19 foretold that this would be the case. As you have forsaken me, and served a strange god in your own land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not your own. (Haydock)
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