Deuteronomy 28
1Now, if you obey the ETERNAL your God, to observe faithfully all the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, the ETERNAL your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
2All these blessings shall come upon you and take effect, if you will but heed the word of the ETERNAL your God:
3Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.
4Blessed shall be your issue from the womb, your produce from the soil, and the offspring of your cattle, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock.
5Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings.
7GOD will put to rout before you the enemies who attack you; they will march out against you by a single road, but flee from you by many roads.
8GOD will ordain blessings for you upon your barns and upon all your undertakings: you will be blessed in the land that the ETERNAL your God is giving you.
9As the ETERNAL swore to you, you will be established as a holy people if you keep the commandments of the ETERNAL your God, walking in those ways.
10And all the peoples of the earth shall see that GOD’s name is proclaimed over you, and they shall stand in fear of you.
11GOD will give you abounding prosperity in your issue from the womb, the offspring of your cattle, and the produce of your soil in the land that GOD swore to your fathers to assign to you.
12GOD will open for you that bounteous store, the heavens, to provide rain for your land in season and to bless all your undertakings. You will be creditor to many nations, but debtor to none.
13GOD will make you the head, not the tail; you will always be at the top and never at the bottom—if only you obey and faithfully observe the commandments of the ETERNAL your God that I enjoin upon you this day,
14and do not deviate to the right or to the left from any of the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day and turn to the worship of other gods.
15But if you do not obey the ETERNAL your God to observe faithfully all the commandments and laws that I enjoin upon you this day, all these curses shall come upon you and take effect:
16Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the country.
17Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18Cursed shall be your issue from the womb and your produce from the soil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock.
19Cursed shall you be in your comings and cursed shall you be in your goings.
20GOD will let loose against you calamity, panic, and frustration in all the enterprises you undertake, so that you shall soon be utterly wiped out because of your evildoing in forsaking Me.
21GOD will make pestilence cling to you, thus putting an end to you in the land that you are entering to possess.
22GOD will strike you with consumption, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew; they shall hound you until you perish.
23The skies above your head shall be copper and the earth under you iron.
24GOD will make the rain of your land dust, and sand shall drop on you from the sky, until you are wiped out.
25GOD will put you to rout before your enemies; you shall march out against them by a single road, but flee from them by many roads; and you shall become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
26Your carcasses shall become food for all the birds of the sky and all the animals of the earth, with none to frighten them off.
27GOD will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with hemorrhoids, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover.
28GOD will strike you with madness, blindness, and dismay.
29You shall grope at noon as the blind grope in the dark; you shall not prosper in your ventures, but shall be constantly abused and robbed, with none to give help.
30If you pay the bride-price for a wife, another man shall enjoy her.If you build a house, you shall not live in it. If you plant a vineyard, you shall not harvest it.
31Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be seized in front of you, and it shall not be returned to you; your flock shall be delivered to your enemies, with none to help you.
32Your sons and daughters shall be delivered to another people, while you look on; and your eyes shall strain for them constantly, but you shall be helpless.
33A people you do not know shall eat up the produce of your soil and all your gains; you shall be abused and downtrodden continually,
34until you are driven mad by what your eyes behold.
35GOD will afflict you at the knees and thighs with a severe inflammation, from which you shall never recover—from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36GOD will drive you, and the king you have set over you, to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone.
37You shall be a consternation, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to which GOD will drive you.
38Though you take much seed out to the field, you shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it.
39Though you plant vineyards and till them, you shall have no wine to drink or store, for the worm shall devour them.
40Though you have olive trees throughout your territory, you shall have no oil for anointment, for your olives shall drop off.
41Though you beget sons and daughters, they shall not remain with you, for they shall go into captivity.
42The cricket shall take over all the trees and produce of your land.
43The strangers in your midst shall rise above you higher and higher, while you sink lower and lower:
44they shall be your creditors, but you shall not be theirs; they shall be the head and you the tail.
45All these curses shall befall you; they shall pursue you and overtake you, until you are wiped out, because you did not heed the ETERNAL your God and keep the commandments and laws enjoined upon you.
46They shall serve as signs and proofs against you and your offspring for all time.
47Because you would not serve the ETERNAL your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything,
48you shall have to serve—in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything—the enemies whom GOD will let loose against you. An iron yoke will be put upon your neck until you are wiped out.
49GOD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, that will swoop down like the eagle—a nation whose language you do not understand,
50a ruthless nation, that will show the old no regard and the young no mercy.
51It shall devour the offspring of your cattle and the produce of your soil, until you have been wiped out, leaving you nothing of new grain, wine, or oil, of the calving of your herds and the lambing of your flocks, until it has brought you to ruin.
52It shall shut you up in all your towns throughout your land until every mighty, towering wall in which you trust has come down. And when you are shut up in all your towns throughout your land that the ETERNAL your God has assigned to you,
53you shall eat your own issue, the flesh of your sons and daughters that the ETERNAL your God has assigned to you, because of the desperate straits to which your enemy shall reduce you.
54The man who is most tender and fastidious among you shall be too mean to his brother and his mate and the children he has spared
55to share with any of them the flesh of the children that he eats, because he has nothing else left as a result of the desperate straits to which your enemy shall reduce you in all your towns.
56And she who is most tender and dainty among you, so tender and dainty that she would never venture to set a foot on the ground, shall begrudge her mate, and her son and her daughter,
57the afterbirth that issues from between her legs and the babies she bears; she shall eat them secretly, because of utter want, in the desperate straits to which your enemy shall reduce you in your towns.
58If you fail to observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching that are written in this book, to reverence this honored and awesome Name, the ETERNAL your God,
59the ETERNAL will inflict extraordinary plagues upon you and your offspring, strange and lasting plagues, malignant and chronic diseases—
60bringing back upon you all the sicknesses of Egypt that you dreaded so, and they shall cling to you.
61Moreover, GOD will bring upon you all the other diseases and plagues that are not mentioned in this book of Teaching, until you are wiped out.
62You shall be left a scant few, after having been as numerous as the stars in the skies, because you did not heed the command of the ETERNAL your God.
63And as GOD once delighted in making you prosperous and many, so will GOD now delight in causing you to perish and in wiping you out; you shall be torn from the land that you are about to enter and possess.
64GOD will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, whom neither you nor your ancestors have experienced.
65Yet even among those nations you shall find no peace, nor shall your foot find a place to rest. GOD will give you there an anguished heart and eyes that pine and a despondent spirit.
66The life you face shall be precarious; you shall be in terror, night and day, with no assurance of survival.
67In the morning you shall say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening you shall say, “If only it were morning!”—because of what your heart shall dread and your eyes shall see.
68GOD will send you back to Egypt in galleys, by a route that I told you you should not see again. There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy.
69These are the terms of the covenant that GOD commanded Moses to conclude with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant that was made with them at Horeb.