Deuteronomy 28
1 “If you do what Yahweh our God tells you to do and faithfully obey everything that I am today commanding you to do, he will cause you to become greater than any other nation on the earth.
Now if you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and keep with care all these orders which I have given you today, then the Lord your God will put you high over all the nations of the earth:
2 If you obey Yahweh, this is what he will do to bless you:
And all these blessings will come on you and overtake you, if your ears are open to the voice of the Lord your God.
3 He will bless everything that you do when you are in the cities and he will bless everything that you do when you are [working] in the fields.
A blessing will be on you in the town, and a blessing in the field.
4 He will bless you by giving you many children [IDM] and by giving you abundant crops, and plenty of cattle and sheep.
A blessing will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herd, and the young of your flock.
5 He will bless you by causing you to have good harvests with plenty of grain [MTY] to make bread.
A blessing will be on your basket and on your bread-basin.
6 He will bless you [everywhere]—when you go out [of your houses] and when you come into [your houses].
A blessing will be on your coming in and on your going out.
7 Yahweh will enable you to defeat [the armies of] your enemies; they will attack you from one direction, but they will run away from you in seven/many directions.
By the power of the Lord, those who take arms against you will be overcome before you: they will come out against you one way, and will go in flight from you seven ways.
8 Yahweh will bless you [by filling] your barns [with grain], and he will bless all the work that you do; he will bless you in the land that he is giving to you.
The Lord will send his blessing on your store-houses and on everything to which you put your hand: his blessing will be on you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
9 “If you obey all the commandments that Yahweh our God [has given to you] and if you conduct your lives as he wants you to do, you will continue to be his people, which is what he promised.
The Lord will keep you as a people holy to himself, as he has said to you in his oath, if you keep the orders of the Lord your God and go on walking in his ways.
10 “When all the people-groups on the earth will realize that you belong to [MTY] Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.
And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord is on you, and they will go in fear of you.
11 “And Yahweh will cause you to prosper very much. He will give you many children [IDM], many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he vowed to our ancestors that he would give to you.
And the Lord will make you fertile in every good thing, in the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your fields, in the land which the Lord, by his oath to your fathers, said he would give you.
12 “When rain is needed, Yahweh will send it from where he stores it in the sky, and he will bless all your work, with the result that you [will be able to] lend money to many other nations, but you will not need to borrow [money from them].
Opening his store-house in heaven, the Lord will send rain on your land at the right time, blessing all the work of your hands: other nations will make use of your wealth, and you will have no need of theirs.
13 If you faithfully obey all of the commands of Yahweh our God that I am giving you today, Yahweh will cause your nation to be a leader among the nations, not inferior to them; you will always be prosperous and never be needy/poor [IDM].
The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; and you will ever have the highest place, if you give ear to the orders of the Lord your God which I give you today, to keep and to do them;
14 [Yahweh will do all these things for you] if you do not turn away from [obeying] what I am commanding you today, and if you never worship or serve other gods.
Not turning away from any of the orders which I give you today, to the right hand or to the left, or going after any other gods to give them worship.
15 But if you do not do what Yahweh our God is telling you to do, and if you do not faithfully obey all his rules and regulations that I am giving to you today, this is what he will do to curse you:
But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to do all his orders and his laws which I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
16 He will curse you when you are in the cities and he will curse you when you are [working] in the fields.
You will be cursed in the town and cursed in the field.
17 He will curse you by not allowing you to have good harvests with plenty of grain [MTY] to make bread.
A curse will be on your basket and on your bread-basin.
18 He will curse you by giving you only a few children [IDM], by causing you to have poor crops, and by not enabling you to have many cattle and sheep.
A curse will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.
19 He will curse you [everywhere]—when you go out [of your houses] and when you come into [your houses].
You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
20 If you do evil things and reject Yahweh, he will curse you by causing you to (be confused/not know what to do), and to be frustrated in everything that you do, until [your enemies] quickly and completely destroy you {you will be quickly and completely destroyed}.
The Lord will send on you cursing and trouble and punishment in everything to which you put your hand, till sudden destruction overtakes you; because of your evil ways in which you have been false to me.
21 Yahweh will cause you to experience terrible diseases, until not one of you remains alive in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.
The Lord will send disease after disease on you, till you have been cut off by death from the land to which you are going.
22 Yahweh will strike/afflict you with diseases that shrivel your bodies, with fever, with inflammation/swelling. It will be extremely hot, and it will not rain. There will be scorching winds, and [Yahweh will cause] your crops to rot. All these things will strike you until you die.
The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete.
23 There will be no rain [MET], [with the result that] the ground will be [as hard as] iron [MET].
And the heaven over your heads will be brass, and the earth under you hard as iron.
24 Instead of sending rain, Yahweh will send strong winds to blow sand and dust over your land, until your land is ruined.
The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust, sending it down on you from heaven till your destruction is complete.
25 Yahweh will enable your enemies to defeat you; your soldiers will attack your enemies from one direction, but they will run away from your enemies in seven/many directions, and when the people of other nations see what is happening to you, they will say that it is horrible.
The Lord will let you be overcome by your haters: you will go out against them one way, and you will go in flight before them seven ways: you will be the cause of fear among all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 [You will die], and birds and wild animals will come and eat your corpses, and there will not be anyone to scare/shoo them away.
Your bodies will be meat for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to send them away.
27 Yahweh will cause you to have boils on your skin, like he caused the people of Egypt to have [many years ago]. He will cause you to have tumors, open sores, and your skin will itch, and there will be nothing that will cure those diseases.
The Lord will send on you the disease of Egypt, and other sorts of skin diseases which nothing will make well.
28 Yahweh will cause [some of] you to become insane; he will cause some of you to become blind, and he will cause [some of] your minds to become confused.
He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear:
29 [Because you will not be able to see where you are going], at midday you will (grope/feel your way) around with your hands, like people do in the darkness. You will continually be oppressed and robbed, and no one will help you.
You will go feeling your way when the sun is high, like a blind man for whom all is dark, and nothing will go well for you: you will be crushed and made poor for ever, and you will have no saviour.
30 Some of you men will be engaged/promised to marry a young woman, but someone else will rape her. You will build houses, but you will never live in them. You will plant grapevines, but you will not eat the grapes; [someone else will eat them].
You will take a wife, but another man will have the use of her: the house which your hands have made will never be your resting-place: you will make a vine-garden, and never take the fruit of it.
31 Your enemies will butcher your cattle while you watch them, and you will not get any of the meat to eat. They will drag away your donkeys while you watch them do it, and they will not give them back to you. They will take away your sheep; and no one will help you [rescue them].
Your ox will be put to death before your eyes, but its flesh will not be your food: your ass will be violently taken away before your face, and will not be given back to you: your sheep will be given to your haters, and there will be no saviour for you.
32 While you watch, your sons and daughters will be given to foreigners to become their slaves. Every day you will very sadly watch for your children to return, but (you will watch in vain/they will never return).
Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will be wasted away with looking and weeping for them all the day: and you will have no power to do anything.
33 People from a foreign nation will take all the crops that you worked hard to produce, and they will constantly treat you harshly and cruelly [DOU].
The fruit of your land and all the work of your hands will be food for a nation which is strange to you and to your fathers; you will only be crushed down and kept under for ever:
34 The result will be that all these terrible things that you see/experience will cause you to become insane.
So that the things which your eyes have to see will send you out of your minds.
35 Yahweh will cause your legs [to be covered with] painful boils that cannot be healed, and you will have boils from the bottoms of your feet to the tops of your heads.
The Lord will send a skin disease, attacking your knees and your legs, bursting out from your feet to the top of your head, so that nothing will make you well.
36 Yahweh will cause your king and the rest of you to be taken to another country, to a place in which you and your ancestors have never lived before, and there you will worship and serve gods that are made of wood or stone.
And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone.
37 When the people-groups in nearby countries see what has happened to you, they will be shocked/horrified; they will make fun [DOU] of you.
And you will become a wonder and a name of shame among all the nations where the Lord will take you.
38 You will plant plenty of seeds in your fields, but you will reap only a small harvest, because locusts will eat the crops.
You will take much seed out into the field, and get little in; for the locust will get it.
39 You will plant grapevines and take care of them, but you will not pick any grapes to make wine, because worms will eat the vines.
You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms.
40 Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will not get any olive oil to rub on your skin because the olives will drop [on the ground before they are ripe].
Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit.
41 You will have sons and daughters, but they will not stay with you, because they will be captured and taken away.
You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go away prisoners into a strange land.
42 Swarms of locusts/insects will eat your crops and [the leaves of] all your trees.
All your trees and the fruit of your land will be the locust's.
43 Foreigners who live in your land will become more and more [powerful], and you will become less and less [powerful].
The man from a strange land who is living among you will be lifted up higher and higher over you, while you go down lower and lower.
44 They will [have money to] lend to you, but you will not [have any money to] lend to them. They will be superior [IDM] to you, and you will be inferior to them [IDM].
He will let you have his wealth at interest, and will have no need of yours: he will be the head and you the tail.
45 “You will experience all these disasters, and you will continue to experience them you until you are destroyed, if you do not do what Yahweh your God told you to do, and do not obey all the rules and regulations that he gave to you.
And all these curses will come after you and overtake you, till your destruction is complete; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, or keep his laws and his orders which he gave you:
46 “These disasters will warn [DOU] you and your descendants forever [about what happens to groups who disobey Yahweh].
These things will come on you and on your seed, to be a sign and a wonder for ever;
47 “Because Yahweh blessed you abundantly in many ways, you should have served him very joyfully [DOU], but you did not do that.
Because you did not give honour to the Lord your God, worshipping him gladly, with joy in your hearts on account of all your wealth of good things;
48 “Therefore, you will work for the enemies whom Yahweh will send to attack you. You will be hungry and thirsty; you will not have clothes to wear; and you will lack everything else that you need. And Yahweh will cause you to become slaves [MET] and work hard until he gets rid of you.
For this cause you will become servants to those whom the Lord your God will send against you, without food and drink and clothing, and in need of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck till he has put an end to you.
49 “Yahweh will cause an army from very far away [HYP] to attack you, whose soldiers speak a language that you do not know/understand. They will swoop down on you [quickly] like an eagle [SIM] attacks its prey.
The Lord will send a nation against you from the farthest ends of the earth, coming with the flight of an eagle; a nation whose language is strange to you;
50 They will be fierce looking. They will not act mercifully toward anyone, not even young children and old people.
A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young:
51 They will [kill and] eat your livestock, and they will eat your crops, and you will (starve/die because you do not have anything to eat). They will not leave for you any grain or wine or [olive] oil or cattle or sheep; and you will all die [from hunger].
He will take the fruit of your cattle and of your land till death puts an end to you: he will let you have nothing of your grain or wine or oil or any of the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, till he has made your destruction complete.
52 Your enemies will surround your towns throughout the land that Yahweh your God is about to give to you, and they will break down the high and strong walls [around your towns], walls which you trusted/thought would protect you.
Your towns will be shut in by his armies, till your high walls, in which you put your faith, have come down: his armies will be round your towns, through all your land which the Lord your God has given you.
53 “When your enemies are surrounding [your towns], you will be extremely hungry, with the result that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters that Yahweh your God has given to you.
And your food will be the fruit of your body, the flesh of the sons and daughters which the Lord your God has given you; because of your bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters.
54 When your enemies have surrounded your towns, even the most gentle and sensitive men among you will want food very desperately, with the result that they will [kill their own children and] eat their flesh, because they will not have anything else to eat. They will not even share any of it with their brothers or wives whom they love very much or with any of their children who are still alive.
That man among you who is soft and used to comfort will be hard and cruel to his brother, and to his dear wife, and to of those his children who are still living;
And will not give to any of them the flesh of his children which will be his food because he has no other; in the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.
56 Even the most gentle and sensitive/kind women among you, who are very refined/rich with the result that they have never had to walk anywhere [HYP], will do the same thing. When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that after they give birth to a baby, they will secretly [kill it and] eat its flesh and also eat its afterbirth. And they will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children.
The most soft and delicate of your women, who would not so much as put her foot on the earth, so delicate is she, will be hard-hearted to her husband and to her son and to her daughter;
And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.
58 “If you do not faithfully obey all of the laws that I am writing, and if you do not revere Yahweh our glorious God [MTY],
If you will not take care to do all the words of this law, recorded in this book, honouring that name of glory and of fear, THE LORD YOUR GOD;
59 he will [punish you by] causing you and your descendants to experience great afflictions and plagues which will last for many years.
Then the Lord your God will make your punishment, and the punishment of your seed, a thing to be wondered at; great punishments and cruel diseases stretching on through long years.
60 He will cause you to experience the plagues that he sent on the people of Egypt, and you will never be healed.
He will send on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which were a cause of fear to you, and they will take you in their grip.
61 He will also cause you to experience many other sicknesses and diseases that I have not talked about in these laws, until you all will die.
And all the diseases and the pains not recorded in the book of this law will the Lord send on you till your destruction is complete.
62 You became as numerous as the stars in the sky, but only a few of you will remain alive, if you do not obey Yahweh your God.
And you will become a very small band, though your numbers were like the stars of heaven; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God.
63 Yahweh was very happy to do good things for you and to cause you to become very numerous, but now he will be happy to ruin you and get rid of you. [Those of] you [who do not die from these plagues] will be snatched away from the land that you will soon be entering to possess.
And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and increasing you, so the Lord will take pleasure in cutting you off and causing your destruction, and you will be uprooted from the land which you are about to take as your heritage.
64 “Yahweh will scatter you among many people-groups, all over the earth, and in those areas/places you will serve other gods that are made of wood or stone, gods which you and your ancestors have never known/worshiped.
And the Lord will send you wandering among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: there you will be servants to other gods, of wood and stone, gods of which you and your fathers had no knowledge.
65 In those places you will be restless. Yahweh will cause you to be constantly worried/anxious, feel hopeless, and discouraged.
And even among these nations there will be no peace for you, and no rest for your feet: but the Lord will give you there a shaking heart and wasting eyes and weariness of soul:
66 You will always be afraid that your enemies will kill you. You will be very fearful, all day and all night.
Your very life will be hanging in doubt before you, and day and night will be dark with fears, and nothing in life will be certain:
67 Because you will be very fearful/afraid because of the [terrible] things that you see, each morning you will say ‘I wish it were evening already!’ and each evening you will say ‘I wish it were morning already!’
In the morning you will say, If only it was evening! And at evening you will say, If only morning would come! Because of the fear in your hearts and the things which your eyes will see.
68 Yahweh will send [some of] you back to Egypt in ships, even though he promised that you would never [be forced to] go there again. There in Egypt you will try to sell yourselves to become slaves of your enemies [in order to have food to eat], but no one will buy you. [All those things will happen to you if you do not obey the laws that Yahweh is giving to you].”
And the Lord will take you back to Egypt again in ships, by the way of which I said to you, You will never see it again: there you will be offering yourselves as men-servants and women-servants to your haters for a price, and no man will take you.
