Lexicon :: Strong's H423 - 'ālâ

“Then you will be free from my oath if you go to my family and they do not give her to you ​— ​you will be free from my oath.’

They replied, “We have clearly seen how the LORD has been with you. We think there should be an oath between two parties ​— ​between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you:

“When someone sins in any of these ways:

If he has seen, heard, or known about something he has witnessed, and did not respond to a public call to testify, he will bear his iniquity.

“at this point the priest will make the woman take the oath with the sworn curse, and he is to say to her ​— ​‘May the LORD make you into an object of your people’s cursing and swearing when he makes your womb[fn] shrivel and your belly swell.

“Then the priest is to write these curses on a scroll and wash them off into the bitter water.

“When he makes her drink the water, if she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings a curse will enter her to cause bitter suffering; her belly will swell, and her womb will shrivel. She will become a curse among her people.

“so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which he is making with you today, so that you may enter into his oath

“I am making this covenant and this oath not only with you,

“When someone hears the words of this oath, he may consider himself exempt,[fn] thinking, ‘I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart.’ This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered land as well as the dry land.

“The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you.

When a man sins against his neighbor

and is forced to take an oath,[fn]

and he comes to take an oath

before your altar in this temple,

If a man sins against his neighbor

and is forced to take an oath[fn]

and he comes to take an oath

before your altar in this temple,

“‘This is what the LORD says: I am about to bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants, fulfilling[fn] all the curses written in the book that they read in the presence of the king of Judah,

join with their noble brothers and commit themselves with a sworn oath[fn] to follow the law of God given through God’s servant Moses and to obey carefully all the commands, ordinances, and statutes of the LORD our Lord.

I have not allowed my mouth to sin

by asking for his life with a curse.

Cursing, deceit, and violence fill his mouth;

trouble and malice are under his tongue.

For the sin of their mouths and the words of their lips,

let them be caught in their pride.

They utter curses and lies.

To be a thief’s partner is to hate oneself;

he hears the curse but will not testify.

Therefore a curse has consumed the earth,

and its inhabitants have become guilty;

the earth’s inhabitants have been burned,

and only a few survive.

For the land is full of adulterers;

the land mourns because of the curse,

and the grazing lands in the wilderness have dried up.

Their way of life[fn] has become evil,

and their power is not rightly used

“I will pursue them with sword, famine, and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth ​— ​a curse and a desolation, an object of scorn and a disgrace among all the nations where I have banished them.

“For this is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just as my anger and fury were poured out on Jerusalem’s residents, so will my fury pour out on you if you go to Egypt. You will become an example for cursing, scorn, execration, and disgrace, and you will never see this place again.’

“And I will take away the remnant of Judah, those who have set their face to go to the land of Egypt to stay there. All of them will meet their end in the land of Egypt. They will fall by the sword; they will meet their end by famine. From the least to the greatest, they will die by the sword and by famine. Then they will become an example for cursing, scorn, execration, and disgrace.

“ ‘For this is what the Lord GOD says: I will deal with you according to what you have done, since you have despised the oath by breaking the covenant.

“He took one of the royal family and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. Then he took away the leading men of the land,

“ ‘As I live ​— ​this is the declaration of the Lord GOD ​— ​he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who put him on the throne, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

“He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. He did all these things even though he gave his hand in pledge. He will not escape!

All Israel has broken your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. The promised curse[fn] written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, has been poured out on us because we have sinned against him.

Then he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the whole land, for everyone who is a thief, contrary to what is written on one side, has gone unpunished,[fn] and everyone who swears falsely, contrary to what is written on the other side, has gone unpunished.