Deuteronomy 28

1If you carefully heed the voice of Yahweh your God, keeping and doing all his commandments that I command you today, then Yahweh your God will exalt you above all the nations of the earth.

2All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of Yahweh your God.

3You will be blessed in the city, and blessed in the field.

4Blessed will be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your land, the fruit of your livestock, the offspring of your cattle, and the increase of your flocks.

5Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.

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

7Yahweh will hand your attackers over to you when they come against you. They will advance along one path but scatter in retreat along seven.

8Yahweh will direct the blessing upon you in your storehouses and in everything you undertake; he will bless you in the land Yahweh your God gives you.

9Yahweh will make you a holy people belonging to him, as he vowed to you, if you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God and follow his ways.

10All the earth's peoples will see that you bear Yahweh's name, and they will fear you.

11Yahweh will make you abound in good, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you.

12Yahweh will open his rich storehouse in the heavens for you, sending rain to your land in due season and blessing all your labors. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.

13Yahweh will set you as head and not tail; you will stand above only and never below, if you heed the commands of Yahweh your God that I charge you today to keep and carry out.

14You shall not deviate from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, to pursue other gods and worship them.

15But if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God to keep and do all his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

16You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field.

17Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.

18Your children, the produce of your land, the offspring of your cattle, and the young of your flocks will be cursed.

19You will be cursed when you enter, and cursed when you leave.

20Yahweh will send curse, confusion, and frustration against you in everything you undertake, until you are destroyed and perish suddenly, because of the evil in your actions, since you have abandoned me.

21Yahweh will cause pestilence to cling to you until he destroys you from the land you are entering to possess.

22Yahweh will strike you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, scorching heat, sword, blight, and mildew; they will pursue you until you perish.

23The sky above you will become bronze, and the ground beneath you iron.

24Yahweh will turn your land's rain to dust and powder; from the sky it will fall upon you until you perish.

25Yahweh will hand you over to defeat before your enemies; you will advance against them one way but scatter fleeing seven ways before them, and you will become a horror to all the earth's kingdoms.

26Your corpse will become food for all birds of the sky and beasts of the earth, with no one to drive them off.

27Yahweh will afflict you with Egypt's boils, tumors, scabs, and itch, from which you cannot recover.

28Yahweh will strike you with madness, blindness, and confusion of heart.

29You will grope about at midday like the blind in darkness, and nothing you do will succeed; you will only face oppression and plunder without end, with no one to rescue you.

30You will become engaged to a wife, but another man will sleep with her; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not enjoy its fruit.

31Your ox will be slaughtered in front of your eyes, but you will not eat any of it; your donkey will be seized violently from your sight, with no return to you; your sheep will go to your enemies, and no one will deliver you.

32Your sons and daughters will be handed over to another nation, your eyes will watch them and languish with yearning for them all day long, but you will be powerless to act.

33A nation unknown to you will devour your soil's produce and every bit of your toil; you will endure nothing but oppression and crushing without end.

34so that you go mad from the sight of your eyes which you will see.

35Yahweh will strike your knees and legs with a painful boil that cannot heal, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

36Yahweh will take you and the king you appoint to rule over you to a nation neither you nor your fathers knew, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

37You will become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the nations to which Yahweh leads you.

38You will take much seed out to the field but gather little in, because the locust will devour it.

39You will plant vineyards and tend them, but will drink no wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm will consume them.

40You will have olive trees everywhere within your borders, but you will not anoint yourself with oil, because your olives will shed their fruit.

41You will have sons and daughters, but they will not belong to you, because they will be taken captive.

42The locust will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your land.

43The foreigner living among you will rise above you higher and higher, while you descend lower and lower.

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

45These curses will reach you, pursue you relentlessly, and overtake you until you perish, because you refused to obey Yahweh your God's voice by keeping his commandments and statutes that he commanded you.

46They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.

47Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with joy and a joyful heart amid the plenty of everything.

48You will serve your enemies, whom Yahweh sends against you, amid hunger, thirst, nakedness, and deprivation of everything; he will fasten an iron yoke around your neck until he destroys you.

49Yahweh will bring a nation against you from distant lands, from the earth's farthest reaches, swift as an eagle—a nation whose speech you will not understand.

50a nation with stern faces, showing no respect for the elderly or favor to the young,

51He will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed; he will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, no increase of your livestock or young of your flock until he destroys you.

52They will besiege you at every gate until your lofty fortified walls collapse—the walls you trusted—across your entire land, and they will besiege you at every gate across your entire land that Yahweh your God gave you.

53You will eat your own children's flesh, that of your sons and daughters whom Yahweh your God gave you, amid the siege and desperation your enemies bring against you.

54The refined and pampered man among you will resent his brother, his beloved wife, and the rest of his children whom he leaves.

55He will refuse his brother, his wife, or his surviving children any share of the flesh from the children he eats, because nothing remains for him amid the siege and desperation your enemies bring on you in all your gates.

56The pampered and delicate woman among you, too dainty to set foot on the ground, will resent her cherished husband, her son, and her daughter.

57and even toward her afterbirth emerging from between her feet and toward her children she bears—for lack of anything else she will consume them secretly amid the siege and anguish your enemy brings on you in your gates.

58If you refuse to carefully follow every word of this law written in this book, with the result that you revere this majestic and fearsome name, Yahweh your God,

59Then Yahweh will make your plagues extraordinary, and the plagues of your offspring—even great plagues of long duration, and harsh sicknesses of long duration.

60He will send every disease from Egypt back against you—the ones you dreaded—and they will stick to you.

61Yahweh will also bring every disease and every plague upon you—not those written in this law's scroll—until you are destroyed.

62Only a few of you will survive, though you once multiplied like the stars of heaven, because you refused to obey the voice of Yahweh your God.

63Just as Yahweh delighted in prospering you and increasing your numbers, so Yahweh will delight in ruining you and wiping you out; you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

64Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods that neither you nor your fathers knew—mere wood and stone.

65Among those nations you will find no relief, nor rest for the soles of your feet, but Yahweh will give you there an anxious heart, failing eyes, and a wasting soul.

66Your life will hang uncertainly before you; you will fear day and night, with no confidence in your life.

67In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!" because of the dread gripping your heart and the horrors your eyes will behold.

68Yahweh will return you to Egypt in ships, along the road I told you would never be seen again, and there you will offer yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will purchase you.