And the Lord said to Moses: Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people rising up will go a fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell: there will they forsake me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them,
Deuteronomy 31:14 And the Lord said to Moses: Behold the days of thy death are nigh: call Josue, and stand ye in the tabernacle of the testimony, that I may give him a charge. So Moses and Josue went and stood in the tabernacle of the testimony:
Deuteronomy 31:15 And the Lord appeared there in the pillar of a cloud, which stood in the entry of the tabernacle.
Deuteronomy 31:16 And the Lord said to Moses: Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people rising up will go a fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell: there will they forsake me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them,
Deuteronomy 31:17 And my wrath shall be kindled against them in that day: and I will forsake them, and will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured: all evils and afflictions shall find them, so that they shall say in that day: In truth it is because God is not with me, that these evils have found me.
Deuteronomy 31:18 But I will hide, and cover my face in that day, for all the evils which they have done, because they have followed strange gods.
The verse centers on "lord", "said", "moses", "behold", "thou", "shalt", "sleep", and "fathers". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "lord" and "said", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 15's "And the Lord appeared there in the..." into verse 17's "And my wrath shall be kindled against...", so "lord" and "said" belong inside that flow. In Deuteronomy context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "lord" and "said" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.