Significantly, these chapters envisage the curse not just as a possibility but as a certainty. Moses, within this text, knows that Israel is going to turn away from YHWH (28:15–68; 29:16–28; 31:16–21, 27, 29), and provides for this contingency: the ultimate curse will be exile (quite logically, since the promised land is the place of blessing), but after exile will come covenant renewal, the circumcision of the heart, the return to the Land, the perfect keeping of Torah (30:1–10).
