This verse predicts the same disasters and uses the same vocabulary as in verse 36.

Will scatter you may also be rendered as “will cause you to scatter,” or even “will cause your enemies to take you away to every nation on earth.”

All peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: the exaggerated language should not be softened in translation.

Gods, of wood and stone: see the comment at 4.28.

Which neither you nor your fathers have known: this may also be expressed as “neither you nor your ancestors have ever worshiped before” (Good News Translation).

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .