Deuteronomy
Chapter 28
1 If you carefully listen to God and follow all the commands I give you today, God will make you greater than all other nations on Earth.
2 All these good things will come to you and be yours if you listen to God’s voice.
3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field.
4 You will be blessed with healthy children, good crops, many cattle, more cows, and lots of sheep.
5 Your basket and your storage will be blessed.
6 You will be blessed when you come in, and you will be blessed when you go out.
7 God will make your enemies who attack you defeated in front of you: they will approach you from one direction, but they will run away from you in seven different ways.
8 God will order blessings for you on your storage places and on everything you do; and he will bless you in the land God gives you.
9 God will make you his special people, just as he promised you, if you follow his commands and live as he wants you to.
10 Everyone on earth will know you are named after God, and they will fear you.
11 God will make you rich in belongings, in children, in livestock, and in crops on your land—the land God promised to your ancestors to give to you.
12 God will open his good treasure for you, the sky to send rain to your land at the right time, and he will bless all you do: you will lend to many countries, but you will not need to borrow.
13 God will make you the leader, not the follower; you will be on top, not on the bottom, if you listen to and follow God’s commands that I give you today.
14 Do not turn away from any of the words I command you today, either to the right or to the left, to follow and serve other gods.
15 If you do not listen to God and do all his commands and rules that I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and catch you.
16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field.
17 Your basket and your storage will be cursed.
18 Your children, your crops, your cattle, and your sheep will be cursed.
19 You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out.
20 God will make you suffer, trouble you, and scold you in everything you try to do until you are ruined and die soon, all because you did evil things and turned away from me.
21 God will cause disease to stick to you until it wipes you out from the land you’re going to take over.
22 God will strike you with wasting disease, fever, swelling, severe heat, the sword, blight, and mildew; these will chase you until you die.
23 The sky above you will be like metal, and the ground beneath you will be as hard as iron.
24 God will turn the rain of your land into powder and dust: it will come down from the sky on you until you are destroyed.
25 God will let you be defeated by your enemies: you will attack them from one direction, but run away in seven different directions, and you will be scattered among all the nations of the world.
26 Your dead body will become food for all the birds of the sky and the animals of the earth, and no one will scare them away.
27 God will punish you with sores, hemorrhoids, scabs, and itching that cannot be cured.
28 God will strike you with madness, blindness, and deep confusion.
29 You will feel around at midday like a blind person in the dark, and you will not succeed in what you do: you will always be mistreated and robbed, and no one will rescue you.
30 You will promise to marry a woman, but another man will be with her; you will build a house, but you won’t live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you won’t pick its grapes.
31 Your ox will be killed while you watch, and you won’t eat any of it. Your donkey will be forcefully taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be handed over to your enemies, and you will have no one to save them.
32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, and you will watch, powerless and longing for them all day long; but you will not be able to do anything.
33 A nation you do not know will eat the crops from your land and all your hard work; you will be constantly oppressed and crushed.
34 You will go crazy from what you will see.
35 God will strike you with painful sores on your knees and legs that can’t be cured, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.
36 God will take you and your chosen king to a foreign country that neither you nor your ancestors have heard of; there you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone.
37 You will become a wonder, a common saying, and an insult among all the nations where God takes you.
38 You will take a lot of seeds to the field but will harvest only a little because locusts will eat it.
39 You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you will not drink the wine or pick the grapes; because worms will eat them.
40 You will have olive trees all around your land, but you will not use the oil on yourself; because your olives will drop off before they are ready.
41 You will have sons and daughters, but you won’t enjoy them; they will be taken away as captives.
42 Locusts will eat all the trees and fruit in your land.
43 The foreigner living among you will rise above you, very high; and you will go down, very low.
44 He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him: he will be the leader, and you will follow.
45 All these curses will happen to you. They will chase you and catch you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to God or follow his rules and laws that he gave you.
46 They will be on you as a sign and a marvel, and on your descendants forever.
47 Because you did not serve God with joy and a happy heart, even though you had plenty of everything;
48 You will serve your enemies that God will send against you, in hunger, thirst, being without clothes, and lacking everything. They will put an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you.
49 God will send a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, fast like an eagle flies; a nation whose language you will not understand.
50 A nation with a scary face, that will not respect old people or be kind to the young.
51 He will eat your livestock and crops until you are ruined. He will not leave you any grain, wine, or oil, nor will he leave the calves of your cows or the lambs of your sheep until he has ruined you.
52 He will surround you at all your gateways until your tall and strong walls fall down, where you felt safe, all over your land. And he will surround you at all your gateways all over your land, which God has given you.
53 You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, which God has given you, during the siege and hardship your enemies will cause you.
54 So the man who is gentle and delicate among you will become hard-hearted against his brother, his beloved wife, and the rest of his children he has left.
55 So he won’t give any of his children’s flesh, which he will eat, to others because he has nothing left during the siege and hardship when your enemies pressure you at all your gates.
56 The soft and gentle woman among you, who would not dare to put her foot on the ground because she is so refined and gentle, will look with hostility at her husband, her son, and her daughter.
57 She will turn against her newborn baby and the children she has given birth to. She will secretly eat them because she has nothing else during the siege and hardship your enemy will cause within your cities.
58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law written in this book and respect this wonderful and awe-inspiring name, God.
59 Then God will make your sicknesses very bad, and your descendants will also have serious, lasting diseases and severe, long-term illnesses.
60 God will cause you to suffer all the sicknesses you feared in Egypt, and they will stick with you.
61 God will bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this book of law until you are destroyed.
62 You will become very few in number, though you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, because you did not obey God.
63 It will happen that just as God was happy to make things good for you and increase your numbers, so God will be happy to ruin you and make you disappear; and you will be taken away from the land you are about to take over.
64 God will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods that you and your ancestors did not know, made of wood and stone.
65 In these countries, you will not be at ease, nor will your feet find rest. God will make your heart fearful, your eyesight weak, and your mind sad.
66 Your life will hang uncertain before you; you will be afraid all day and night, and will have no confidence about living.
67 In the morning, you will wish it were evening. In the evening, you will wish it were morning because of the fear in your heart and the terrible things you will see.
68 God will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the path I told you you’d never see again. There, you will be sold to your enemies as slaves, both men and women, but no one will buy you.