Deuteronomy 28

1 If you truly obey what the Lord your God tells you, and carefully follow all his commandments that I'm giving you today, then the Lord your God will place you high above all the nations of the earth.

“So then, if you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, so as to keep and do all of his commandments, which I instruct to you this day, the Lord your God will cause you to be more exalted than all the nations which exist upon the earth.

2 You will have all the following blessings and even more, if you do what the Lord your God says.

And all these blessings shall come to you and take hold of you, but only if you listen to his precepts.

3 You will be blessed when you're in the town; you will be blessed when you're in the countryside.

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

4 You will be blessed with many children. You will be blessed with good harvests. You will be blessed with livestock—your cattle will have many calves, and your sheep will have many lambs.

Blessed shall be the fruit of your loins, and the fruit of your land, and the fruit of your cattle, the droves of your herds, and the folds of your sheep.

5 You will be blessed with plenty of bread.

Blessed shall be your barns, and blessed your storehouses.

6 You will be blessed wherever you go and in everything you do.

Blessed shall you be entering and departing.

7 The Lord will defeat the enemies who come to attack you. They will come at you from one direction, but they will scatter seven different ways.

The Lord will grant that your enemies, who rise up against you, will fall down in your sight. They will come against you by one way, and they will flee from your face by seven ways.

8 The Lord will bless your income and everything you do. The Lord your God will bless you in the country he is giving you.

The Lord will send forth a blessing upon your cellars, and upon all the works of your hands. And he will bless you in the land that you shall receive.

9 The Lord will make you his holy people, just as he promised you, if you obey the Lord your God's commandments and follow his ways.

The Lord will raise you up as a holy people for himself, just as he swore to you, if you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and walk in his ways.

10 Then everyone on earth will see that the Lord has chosen you to be his, and they will be afraid of you.

And all the peoples of the earth shall see that the name of the Lord has been invoked over you, and they shall fear you.

11 The Lord will make you very prosperous. You will have many children, your livestock will produce plenty of young, and your land will grow good harvests—all this in the country the Lord promised your forefathers he would give you.

The Lord will cause you to be abundant in every good thing: in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your land, which the Lord swore to your fathers that he would give to you.

12 The Lord will provide rain for your land at the right time from his heavenly storehouse to bless all your work growing crops. You will lend money to many nations but you won't need to borrow from any of them.

The Lord will open his excellent treasury, the heavens, so that it may distribute rain in due time. And he will bless all the works of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you yourself will borrow nothing from anyone.

13 The Lord will put you in first place, not the last. You will only go up, never down, as long as you listen to and follow carefully the commandments of the Lord your God that I'm giving you today.

And the Lord will appoint you as the head, and not as the tail. And you shall be always above, and not beneath. But only if you will listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I entrust to you this day, and will keep and do them,

14 Don't deviate from any of my instructions today. Don't go and worship other gods.

and will not turn aside from them, neither to the right, nor to the left, nor follow strange gods, nor worship them.

15 But if you don't obey the Lord your God by following carefully all his commandments and regulations I'm giving you today, then you will experience all the following curses and more:

But if you are not willing to listen to the voice of the Lord your God, so as to keep and do all his commandments and ceremonies, which I instruct to you this day, all these curses shall come to you, and take hold of you.

16 You will be cursed when you're in the town; you will be cursed when you're in the countryside.

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

17 You will be cursed by not having bread.

Cursed shall be your barn, and cursed your storehouses.

18 You will be cursed by not having children, and by not having good harvests, and by your cattle not having calves, and your sheep not having lambs.

Cursed shall be the fruit of your loins, and the fruit of your land, the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep.

19 You will be cursed wherever you go and in everything you do.

Cursed shall you be entering, and cursed departing.

20 The Lord will send you curses, making you confused and frustrated in everything you do, until you are brought down and die quickly because of the evil that you've done by abandoning him.

The Lord will send famine and hunger upon you, and a rebuke upon all the works that you do, until he quickly crushes and perishes you, because of your very wicked innovations, by which you have forsaken me.

21 The Lord will give you infectious diseases until he has wiped you out from the country you are entering town.

May the Lord join a pestilence to you, until he consumes you from the land, which you shall enter so as to possess.

22 Then Lord will hit you with sickness that makes you waste away, with a severe fever and swelling like you're burning up, while your crops are damaged by drought and blight and mildew. These will attack you until you die.

May the Lord strike you with destitution, with fever and cold, with burning and heat, and with polluted air and rot, and may he pursue you until you perish.

23 The sky above you will be like bronze, and the earth beneath you will be like iron.

May the heavens which are above you be of brass, and may the ground upon which you tread be of iron.

24 The Lord will change the rain of your land into dust and sand; it will fall from the sky on you until you're destroyed.

May the Lord give you dust instead of rain upon your land, and may ashes descend from heaven over you, until you have been wiped away.

25 The Lord will have your enemies defeat you. You will attack them from one direction, but you will scatter seven different ways. Everyone on earth will be horrified at what happens to you.

May the Lord hand you over to fall before your enemies. May you go forth against them by one way, and flee by seven ways, and may you be scattered across all the kingdoms of the earth.

26 Your dead bodies will be food for birds of prey and wild animals, and there won't be anyone to scare them away.

And may your carcass be food for all the flying things of the air and the wild beasts of the land, and may there be no one to drive them away.

27 The Lord will give you boils like he did to the Egyptians, with swellings and scabs and skin rashes that can't be cured.

May the Lord strike you with the ulcer of Egypt, and may he strike the part of your body, through which the dung goes out, with disease as well as itch, so much so that you are unable to be cured.

28 The Lord will send you mad and make you blind and confused,

May the Lord strike you with frenzy and blindness and a madness of the mind.

29 so that even at noon you will be groping around like a blind man in the dark. You won't be successful in what you do. You'll be persecuted and robbed the whole time, and no one will come and save you.

And may you grope at midday, just as a blind man is accustomed to grope in darkness, and may your paths not be straight. And at all times may you suffer slander and be oppressed with violence, and may you have no one who may free you.

30 You will be engaged to marry a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house but you won't live in it. You will plant a vineyard but won't benefit from any harvest.

May you take a wife, though another sleeps with her. May you build a house, but not live within it. May you plant a vineyard, and not gather its vintage.

31 Your ox will be slaughtered right in front of you, but you won't eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and won't be returned to you. Your sheep will be taken by your enemies, and no one will come and save you.

May your ox be immolated before you, though you do not eat from it. May your donkey be seized in your sight, and not restored to you. May your sheep be given to your enemies, and may there be no one who may help you.

32 Your sons and daughters will be taken away as slaves to other nations while you watch, and you'll wear your eyes out crying over them, but there won't be anything you can do about it.

May your sons and your daughters be handed over to another people, as your eyes watch and languish at the sight of them throughout the day, and may there be no strength in your hand.

33 A foreign nation you've never heard of will eat all the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will be continually persecuted and downtrodden.

May a people you do not know eat the fruits of your land and of all your labors. And may you continually suffer from slander and oppression every day.

34 What you see will drive you mad.

And may you be stupefied at the terror of the things your eyes will see.

35 The Lord will give you painful boils that can't be cured on your knees and thighs, in fact from head to toe.

May the Lord strike you with a very grievous ulcer in the knees and in the legs, and may you be unable to attain health, from the sole of the foot to the top of the head.

36 The Lord will exile you and your chosen king you to a foreign nation that neither you nor your forefathers had ever heard of. There you will worship other gods, idols made of wood and stone.

May the Lord lead you and your king, whom you will have appointed over yourself, into a nation which you and your fathers have not known. And there you will serve foreign gods, of wood and of stone.

37 You will be something that horrifies all the nations where you've been exiled by the Lord. They will laugh at you and ridicule you.

And you will become nothing but a proverb and a fable to all the peoples to whom the Lord will lead you.

38 You will sow a lot of seed in the field, but harvest very little because the locusts will destroy it.

You will sow much seed upon the ground, but you will harvest little. For the locusts will devour everything.

39 You will plant and vineyards and care for them, but you won't harvest the grapes or drink the wine, because they'll be eaten by maggots.

You will dig and plant a vineyard, but you will not drink the wine, nor gather anything at all from it. For it will be devastated by worms.

40 You will have olive trees all over the country but you won't have any olive oil to use, because the olives will drop early from the trees.

You will have olive trees in all your borders, but you will not be anointed with the oil. For the olives will fall off and perish.

41 You will have sons and daughters, but you won't have them for long, because they will be taken off into captivity as slaves.

You will conceive sons and daughters, and you will not enjoy them. For they will be led into captivity.

42 Locust swarms will destroy all your trees and crops.

Rot will consume all the trees, as well as the fruits of your land.

43 Foreigners who live with you will rise higher and higher in status above you, while you sink lower and lower.

The new arrival who lives with you in the land will ascend over you, and be higher. But you will descend, and be lower.

44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the first, and you will be the last.

He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him. He will be as the head, and you will be as the tail.

45 All these curses will come down on you. They will chase after you and attack you until you die because you did not obey the Lord your God and keep the commandments and regulations he gave you.

And all these curses shall come to you, and shall pursue you, and shall take hold of you, until you pass away, because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and you would not serve his commandments and ceremonies, which he has instructed to you.

46 They will be lasting evidence, visible signs of what happened to you and your descendants.

And there will be the signs and portents with you, and with your offspring, forever.

47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with happiness and with a joyful attitude,

Because you did not serve the Lord your God, with gladness and a joyful heart, over the abundance of all things.

48 you will serve your enemies that the Lord sends to attack you with hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty. He will tie an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

You will serve your enemy, whom the Lord will send to you, in hunger and thirst and nakedness, and in destitution of all things. And he will place an iron yoke upon your neck, until he has crushed you.

49 The Lord will bring a nation to attack you from a long way off, from the ends of the earth. They will swoop down upon you like an eagle, this nation whose language you won't understand.

The Lord will lead over you a nation from far away, even from the furthest parts of the earth, like an eagle flying with great force, whose language you are not able to understand:

50 They are a ruthless nation who don't respect for the old and have no mercy on the young.

a very insolent nation, which will show no deference to elders, nor take pity on little ones.

51 They will eat your lambs and calves and the crops you've grown until you are destroyed. They won't leave you any grain or new wine or olive oil, no calves from your herds or lambs from your flocks, so you'll die of starvation.

And he will devour the fruit of your cattle, and the fruits of your land, until you have passed away, without leaving behind you wheat, or wine, or oil, or herds of oxen, or flocks of sheep: until he utterly destroys you.

52 They will besiege all the towns in your country, until the high, fortified walls that you trust in have fallen. They will besiege all your towns in your country that the Lord your God has given you.

And he will crush you in all your cities. And your strong and lofty walls, in which you trusted, will be destroyed throughout all your land. You will be besieged within your gates throughout all your land, which the Lord your God will give to you.

53 You'll end up eating your children, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God gave you, because of the siege and the suffering that your enemy will cause you.

And you will eat the fruit of your womb, and the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, which the Lord your God will give to you, due to the anguish and devastation with which your enemy will oppress you.

54 The kindest and most sensitive man among you will refuse to share his food with his brother, the wife he loves, and those of his own children who are left.

The man who is pampered and very self-indulgent among you will vie with his own brother, and with the wife who lies at his bosom,

55 He will refuse to share with any of them the flesh of his children that he's forced to eat because he doesn't have anything else because of the siege and suffering your enemy has caused you in all your towns.

lest he give to them from the flesh of his sons, which he will eat. For he has nothing else due to the siege and the destitution, with which your enemies will devastate you within all your gates.

56 The kindest and most sensitive woman among you, so kind and sensitive she wouldn't ever go barefoot on the ground, will refuse to share her food, a baby and its afterbirth, with the husband she loves and her own son and daughter.

The tender and pampered woman, who would not walk upon the soil, nor step firmly with her foot due to her very great softness and tenderness, will vie with her husband, who lies at her bosom, over the flesh of son and of daughter,

57 She will even secretly eat her the babies she gives birth to and the afterbirth, since she doesn't have anything else because of the siege and suffering your enemy has caused you in all your towns,

and over the filth of the afterbirth, which goes forth from between her thighs, and over the children who are born in the same hour. For they will eat them secretly, due to the scarcity of all things during the siege and the devastation, with which your enemy will oppress you within your gates.

58 If you don't carefully observe all these laws written down in this book so that you may show respect for this glorious and awesome Lord your God,

If you will not keep and do all the words of this law, which have been written in this volume, and fear his glorious and terrible name, that is, the Lord your God,

59 he will bring down on you and your descendants unbelievable disasters, intense and long-lasting diseases, and terrible and incurable sicknesses.

then the Lord will increase your plagues, and the plagues of your offspring, plagues great and long-lasting, infirmities very grievous and continuous.

60 He will give you all the diseases you were terrified of in Egypt, and they will stay with you.

And he will turn back upon you all the afflictions of Egypt, which you fear, and these will cling to you.

61 The Lord will also give you every sickness and disease, even those not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

In addition, the Lord will lead over you all the diseases and plagues that are not written in the volume of this law, until he crushes you.

62 You who grew as numerous as the stars in the sky will end up as only a few, because you would not obey what Lord your God told you.

And you will remain few in number, though you were before like the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.

63 In the same way as he wanted to make you prosperous and increase in number, so now he will wipe you out and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the country you are going in to own.

And just as before, when the Lord rejoiced over you, doing good for you and multiplying you, so shall he rejoice, scattering and overturning you, so as to take you away from the land, which you shall enter in order to possess.

64 The Lord will scatter you among the nations all over the earth, and there you will worship other gods, gods made of wood and stone, which you and your fathers had never heard of.

The Lord will disperse you among all the peoples, from the heights of the earth to its furthest limits. And there you will serve foreign gods of wood and of stone, which you and your fathers did not know.

65 You won't find any place to rest among those nations, no place of your own. The Lord will make you anxious, with failing eyesight and a mind full of despair.

Similarly, you will not have tranquility, even within those nations, nor will there be any rest for the steps of your feet. For the Lord will give to you in that place a fearful heart, and failing eyes, and a life consumed with grieving.

66 You will see your life hanging in the balance as you doubt. You will be afraid day and night, terrified you won't survive.

And your life will be as if it were hanging before you. You will be afraid night and day, and you will not have confidence in your own life.

67 In the morning you'll say, “I wish it was evening!” and in the evening you'll say, “I wish it was morning!” because you're so frightened by the terrifying things you see.

In the morning you will say, ‘Who will grant evening to me?’ and at evening, ‘Who will grant morning to me?’ because of the dread of your heart, with which you will be terrified, and because of those things that you will see with your eyes.

68 The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships to a place that I said you weren't ever meant to see again. You will put yourselves on sale there to your enemies as male and female slaves, but nobody will want to buy you.

The Lord will lead you back into Egypt with a fleet of ships, along the way, about which he said to you that you would not see it again. In that place, you will be put up for sale as men and women servants to your enemies, but there will be no one willing to buy you.”