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.
And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of 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 upon thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.
3 You will be blessed when you're in the town; you will be blessed when you're in the countryside.
Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be 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 thy body, and the fruit of thy land, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock.
5 You will be blessed with plenty of bread.
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.
6 You will be blessed wherever you go and in everything you do.
Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
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 cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thee; they shall come out against thee one way, and shall flee before thee 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 command the blessing with thee in thy barns, and in all that thou puttest thy hand unto; and He will bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
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 establish thee for a holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto thee; if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy 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 is called upon thee; and they shall be afraid of thee.
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.
And the LORD will make thee over-abundant for good, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, in the land which the LORD swore unto thy fathers to give thee.
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 unto thee His good treasure the heaven to give the rain of thy land in its season, and to bless all the work of thy hand; and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow.
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 make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if thou shalt hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them;
14 Don't deviate from any of my instructions today. Don't go and worship other gods.
and shalt not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve 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 it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.
16 You will be cursed when you're in the town; you will be cursed when you're in the countryside.
Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.
17 You will be cursed by not having bread.
Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.
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 thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the young of thy flock.
19 You will be cursed wherever you go and in everything you do.
Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
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 upon thee cursing, discomfiture, and rebuke, in all that thou puttest thy hand unto to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the evil of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken Me.
21 The Lord will give you infectious diseases until he has wiped you out from the country you are entering town.
The LORD will make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until He have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest in to possess it.
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.
The LORD will smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with drought, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
23 The sky above you will be like bronze, and the earth beneath you will be like iron.
And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be 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.
The LORD will make the rain of thy land powder and dust; from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
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.
The LORD will cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out one way against them, and shalt flee seven ways before them; and thou shalt be a horror unto 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 thy carcasses shall be food unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and there shall be none to frighten 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.
The LORD will smite thee with the boil of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
28 The Lord will send you mad and make you blind and confused,
The LORD will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.
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 thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not make thy ways prosperous; and thou shalt be only oppressed and robbed alway, and there shall be none to save thee.
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.
Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not use the fruit thereof.
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.
Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof; thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee; thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies; and thou shalt have none to save thee.
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.
Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day; and there shall be nought in the power of thy 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.
The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed away:
34 What you see will drive you mad.
so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt 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.
The LORD will smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, whereof thou canst not be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the crown of thy 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.
The LORD will bring thee, and thy king whom thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation that thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and 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 thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples whither the LORD shall lead thee away.
38 You will sow a lot of seed in the field, but harvest very little because the locusts will destroy it.
Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather little in; for the locust shall consume it.
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.
Thou shalt plant vineyards and dress them, but thou shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worm shall eat them.
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.
Thou shalt have olive-trees throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olives shall drop off.
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.
Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be thine; for they shall go into captivity.
42 Locust swarms will destroy all your trees and crops.
All thy trees and the fruit of thy land shall the locust possess.
43 Foreigners who live with you will rise higher and higher in status above you, while you sink lower and lower.
The stranger that is in the midst of thee shall mount up above thee higher and higher; and thou shalt come down lower and 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 shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him; he shall be the head, and thou shalt be 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 upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou didst not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded thee.
46 They will be lasting evidence, visible signs of what happened to you and your descendants.
And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever;
47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with happiness and with a joyful attitude,
because thou didst not serve the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of 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.
therefore shalt thou serve thine enemy whom the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.
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 bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as the vulture swoopeth down; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;
50 They are a ruthless nation who don't respect for the old and have no mercy on the young.
a nation of fierce countenance, that shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young.
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 shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy ground, until thou be destroyed; that also shall not leave thee corn, wine, or oil, the increase of thy kine, or the young of thy flock, until he have caused thee to perish.
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 shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fortified walls come down, wherein thou didst trust, throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
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 thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters whom the LORD thy God hath given thee; in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall straiten thee.
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 that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil against his brother, and against the wife of his bosom, and against the remnant of his children whom he hath remaining;
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.
so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he hath nothing left him; in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall straiten thee in all thy 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 delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil against the husband of her bosom, and against her son, and against her 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 against her afterbirth that cometh out from between her feet, and against her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly; in the siege and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall straiten thee in thy 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 thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and awful Name, the LORD thy 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 make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.
60 He will give you all the diseases you were terrified of in Egypt, and they will stay with you.
And He will bring back upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast in dread of; and they shall cleave unto thee.
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.
Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
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 ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou didst not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy 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 it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest in to possess it.
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.
And the LORD shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers, even wood and stone.
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.
And among these nations shalt thou have no repose, and there shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot; but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and languishing of soul.
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 thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have no assurance of thy 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 thou shalt say: 'Would it were even!' and at even thou shalt say: 'Would it were morning!' for the fear of thy heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.
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.
And the LORD shall bring thee back into Egypt in ships, by the way whereof I said unto thee: 'Thou shalt see it no more again'; and there ye shall sell yourselves unto your enemies for bondmen and for bondwoman, and no man shall buy you.
