Deuteronomy 28

¹And it will be, if you indeed obey the voice of the Lord your God, by keeping and doing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

²And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, when you obey the voice of the LORD your God.

³Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.

⁴Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your livestock, the young of your herd and the young of your flock.

⁵Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.

⁶Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

⁷The LORD will give your enemies who rise against you struck down before you; by one road they shall come out against you, and by seven roads they shall flee before you.

⁸The Lord will command the blessing to be with you, in your storehouses and in all that you undertake, and he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

⁹The LORD will establish you as a holy people to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.

¹⁰And all the peoples of the earth shall see that the name of the LORD is called over you, and they shall be afraid of you.

¹¹And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, on the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

¹²The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

¹³The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; and you shall be only above, and you shall not be below, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, to keep and to do them.

¹⁴And you shall not turn aside from any of the words that I am commanding you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

¹⁵But it shall come about, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God to keep and to do all his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

¹⁶Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.

¹⁷Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.

¹⁸Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock.

¹⁹Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

²⁰The Lord will send against you the curse, the panic, and the rebuke, in all that you undertake, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, because of the evil of your deeds in that you have forsaken me.

²¹The LORD will make pestilence cling to you until he has consumed you from off the land that you are entering to possess.

²²The Lord will afflict you with wasting disease, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with scorching heat, and with drought, and with blight, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish.

²³And the sky over your head shall be bronze, and the earth beneath you shall be iron.

²⁴The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from the heavens it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.

²⁵The Lord will cause you to be struck down before your enemies. By one road you shall go out against him, and by seven roads you shall flee before him, and you shall become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

²⁶And your corpse shall be food for every bird of the sky and for the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

²⁷The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors, and with festering sores, and with itch, from which you cannot be healed.

²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart.

²⁹And you shall grope at noon as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways, and you shall be only oppressed and robbed all your days, and there shall be no one to save you.

³⁰A woman you will betroth, but another man will ravish her; a house you will build, but you will not dwell in it; a vineyard you will plant, but you will not enjoy its fruit.

³¹Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be seized before you, and shall not be returned to you; your flock shall be given to your enemies, and there shall be no one to save you.

³²Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them all day long, and there shall be no power in your hand.

³³The fruit of your ground and all your labor a people that you have not known shall eat, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed all the days.

³⁴And you shall be driven mad by the sight of your eyes, at what you see.

³⁵The Lord will afflict you with bad boils on the knees and on the legs, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

³⁶The LORD will lead you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone.

³⁷And you will become a horror, a byword, and an object of ridicule among all the peoples to whom the LORD will drive you.

³⁸Much seed you shall carry out to the field, but little you shall gather in, for the locust shall devour it.

³⁹You shall plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you shall drink no wine and gather nothing in, for the worm shall eat them.

⁴⁰Olive trees will be yours throughout all your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with oil, for your olives will drop off.

⁴¹Sons and daughters you shall beget, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.

⁴²All your trees and the fruit of your ground the swarming insect shall consume.

⁴³The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.

⁴⁴He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head and you shall be the tail.

⁴⁵And all these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.

⁴⁶They shall be upon you as a sign and a wonder, and upon your offspring forever.

⁴⁷Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and with gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things.

⁴⁸And you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord shall send against you, in hunger and thirst and nakedness and in lack of everything, and he will place an iron yoke on your neck until he destroys you.

⁴⁹The LORD will bring against you a nation from afar, from the end of the earth, swooping down as the eagle swoops, a nation whose language you cannot understand.

⁵⁰a nation fierce of face, which shall show no regard to the old and shall show no favor to the young.

⁵¹And he shall eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed, who shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, nor the firstlings of your cattle or the young of your flock, until he destroys you.

⁵²And it shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land; and it shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land that the Lord your God has given you.

⁵³And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall press you.

⁵⁴The man among you who is tender and very delicate will look with a grudging eye upon his brother, upon the wife of his bosom, and upon the rest of his children who remain.

⁵⁵so that he will not give to any one of them any of the flesh of his sons that he is eating, because nothing is left for him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates.

⁵⁶The most tender and pampered woman among you, who would not dare to set the sole of her foot upon the ground out of delicateness and tenderness, shall begrudge the husband of her bosom and her son and her daughter.

⁵⁷and her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet, and her children whom she bears, because she will eat them in secret, in lack of everything, in the siege and in the distress that your enemy presses upon you in your gates.

⁵⁸If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this scroll, to fear this glorious and awesome Name -- the Lord your God --

⁵⁹Then the LORD will make your plagues extraordinary and the plagues of your offspring, plagues great and lasting, and diseases bad and lasting.

⁶⁰And he will bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you feared, and they will cling to you.

⁶¹Also every sickness and every wound that is not written in this scroll of the law, the Lord will bring upon you until you are destroyed.

⁶²And you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the heavens in multitude, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

⁶³And it will be: just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to annihilate you; and you will be uprooted from upon the land that you are entering there to possess it.

⁶⁴And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁶⁵And among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot; and the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a despairing soul.

⁶⁶And your life will hang in suspense before you, and you will dread night and day, and you will have no confidence in your life.

⁶⁷In the morning you will say, 'Who will give evening?' and in the evening you will say, 'Who will give morning?' -- because of the dread of your heart that you dread, and because of the sight of your eyes that you see.

⁶⁸And the Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the route about which I said to you, 'You shall never see it again'; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.