Deuteronomy 28

¹“And it will happen that if you indeed listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to diligently observe all his commandments that I am commanding you today, then Yahweh your God will set you above all the nations of the earth.[#Literally “to observe to do”; #Literally “the day”]

²And all of these blessings shall come upon you, and they shall have an effect on you if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God:[#Literally “they shall overtake you”]

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

⁴“Blessed will be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your livestock, the calf of your cattle and the lambs of your flock.[#Literally “what is dropped of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks”]

⁵“Blessed will be your basket and your kneading trough.

⁶“Blessed will you be when you come in and blessed will you be when you go out.[#Literally “in/at your coming and you will be blessed in/at your going out”]

⁷“Yahweh will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; on one road they shall come out against you, but on seven roads they shall flee before you.[#Literally “the ones rising against you being defeated to the face of you”; #Or “way”; #Or “ways”; #Literally “to the face of you”]

⁸Yahweh will command concerning you the blessing to be in your barns and in all your endeavors; and he will bless you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.[#Literally “with you”; #Literally “in all of the sending forth of your hand”]

⁹Yahweh will establish you for himself as a holy people as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and you walk in his ways.[#Literally “to/for him”]

¹⁰And all of the peoples of the earth shall see that by the name of Yahweh you are called, and they shall fear you.[#Literally “that the name of Yahweh is called/assigned upon you”; #Literally “they shall be afraid/fearful from you”]

¹¹And Yahweh will make you successful and prosperous, in the fruit of your womb and on the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors to give to you.[#Literally “Yahweh will cause for you goodness”; #Or “fathers”]

¹²Yahweh shall open for you his rich storehouse, even the heavens, to give the rain for your land in its time and to bless all of the work of your hand, and you will lend to many nations; you will not borrow from them.[#Literally “good”; #Hebrew “of”]

¹³And Yahweh shall make you as head and not the tail, and you shall be only at the top of the nations, and you shall not be at the bottom, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you today and diligently observe them.[#Literally “place/set you up”; #Literally “the day”; #Literally “to observe them and to do them”]

¹⁴And you shall not turn aside from any of the words that I am commanding you today to the right or left by going after other gods to serve them.[#Literally “all of”; #Literally “the day”]

¹⁵“And then if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God by diligently observing all of his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, then all of these curses shall come upon you, and they shall overtake you:[#Literally “and it will happen”; #Literally “to observe and to do”; #Literally “the day”]

¹⁶“You shall be cursed in the city, and you shall be cursed in the field.[#All of these curses have a future orientation that points to Israel in the land of Canaan]

¹⁷“Your basket shall be cursed and your kneading trough.

¹⁸“The fruit of your womb shall be cursed and the fruit of you ground, the calves of your cattle and the lambs of your flock.

¹⁹“You shall be cursed when you come in, and you shall be cursed when you go out.[#Literally “at/in your coming”; #Literally “at/in your going out”]

²⁰“Yahweh will send upon you the curse, the panic, and the threat in everything that you undertake, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly because of the evil of your deeds in that you have forsaken me.[#Others translate as a wish: “may Yahweh send upon you …”; #These words are translated variously, e.g., “starvation,” “thirst,” “rebuke/dysentery” (NEB) or “curses,” “confusion,” “frustration” (NLT); #Or “confusion”; #Or “rebuke”; #Literally “in all the sending out of your hand that you do”; #Literally “until your to be destroyed and until your to perish quickly”; #Literally “from the face of the evil of your deeds”; #Literally “which”]

²¹Yahweh will cause the plague to cling to you until it consumes you from the land that you are going to, to take possession of it.[#Literally “it to consume to”; #Hebrew “to there”]

²²Yahweh will afflict you with the wasting diseases and with the fever and with the inflammation and with the scorching heat and with the sword and with the blight and with the mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish.[#Others translate “drought” (NLT, NEB); #Literally “until your/you to perish”]

²³And your heavens that are over your heads shall be like bronze, and the earth that is under you shall be like iron.

²⁴Yahweh will change the rain of your land to fine dust and to sand; from the heaven it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.[#Literally “until your being destroyed”]

²⁵“Yahweh shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies; on one road you shall go against them, but you will flee on seven roads before them, and you shall become a thing of horror to all of the kingdoms of the earth.[#Literally “to the face of”; #Literally “to/toward”; #Hebrew “him”; #Literally “to the face of”; #Hebrew “him”]

²⁶And your dead bodies shall be as food for all of the birds of the heaven and to the animals of the earth, and there shall not be anyone to frighten them away.[#Literally “one causing fright to them”]

²⁷“Yahweh shall afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scurvy and with the skin rash that cannot be healed.[#Literally “the skin rash that not it is able it to be healed”]

²⁸Yahweh shall afflict you with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart.

²⁹And you shall be groping at noon just as the blind person gropes in the dark, and you shall not succeed in finding your way, and you shall only be abused and robbed all the time, and there will not be anyone who will rescue you.[#Literally “all the days”; #Literally “one who delivers/rescues you”]

³⁰You shall become engaged to a woman, but another man shall sleep with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not live in it; a vineyard you shall plant, but you shall not enjoy it.[#Or “ravish/violate”]

³¹Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, and you shall not eat it; your donkey shall be stolen right before you, and it shall not be returned to you; your sheep and your goats shall be given to your enemies, and there shall not be anyone who rescues you.[#Literally “to the face of you”; #Literally “there shall not be for you one who rescues”]

³²Your sons and your daughters shall be given to other people, and you will be looking on longingly for them all day, but you will be powerless to do anything.[#Literally “your eyes will see/look”; #Literally “wearing out”; #Hebrew “to”; #Literally “but there will not be for power of your hand”]

³³A people that you do not know shall consume the harvest of your land and all your labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.[#Literally “all of the days”]

³⁴You shall become mad because of what your eyes shall see.[#Literally “from/by the sight of your eyes”]

³⁵Yahweh shall strike you with grievous boils on the knees and on the upper thighs from which you will not be able to be healed, from the sole of your foot and up to your crown.[#Literally “which not you are able to heal”]

³⁶Yahweh will bring you and your king whom you set up over you to a nation that you or your ancestors have not known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone.[#Or “fathers”]

³⁷And you will become a horror and a proverb and ridicule among all the peoples where Yahweh drives you there.

³⁸“You shall carry out much seed to the field, but you shall gather little produce, for the locust shall devour it.

³⁹You shall plant vineyards and you shall dress them, but you shall not drink wine and you shall not gather grapes, for the worm shall eat it.[#Or “cultivate”; #That is, the produce]

⁴⁰There shall be olive trees for you in all of your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself, for your olives shall drop off.[#Hebrew “olive”]

⁴¹You shall bear sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.[#Literally “for you”]

⁴²The cricket shall take possession of all your trees and the fruit of your ground.

⁴³The alien that is in your midst shall ascend over you, higher and higher, but you shall go down lower and lower.

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

⁴⁵“And all of these curses shall come over you, and they shall pursue you, and they shall overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, by observing his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.[#Literally “until you to be destroyed”; #Literally “not you listened”; #Literally “to observe”]

⁴⁶And they shall be among you as a sign and as a wonder and among your offspring forever.[#Literally “until eternity,” but not in a timeless, philosophic sense]

⁴⁷“Because of the fact that you did not serve Yahweh your God with joy and with gladness of heart for the abundance of everything,[#Literally “Under”]

⁴⁸then you shall serve your enemies, whom Yahweh will send against you under conditions of famine, in thirst, in nakedness, and in a lack of everything; and he shall place a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.[#Literally “give”; #Literally “until his destroying of you”]

⁴⁹Yahweh will raise up against you a nation from far off, from the end of the earth, attacking as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you will not understand,[#Literally “a nation who not you will understand its language”]

⁵⁰a grim-faced nation who does not show respect to the old and the young and does not show pity.[#Literally “a nation fierce/determined of face”; #Literally “who not lifts up faces”]

⁵¹And it shall consume the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed, and who will not leave for you any grain, wine, and olive oil, calves of your herds, and lambs of your flock until it has destroyed you.[#That is, the invading nation; #Literally “until your destroying”; #Literally “what is dropped of your herds”; #Literally “the offspring of small animals”; #Literally “until his to destroy you”]

⁵²And it shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls fall, which you are trusting in throughout your land; and it shall besiege you in all of your towns in all of your land that Yahweh your God has given to you.[#Literally “until the coming down of your walls, high and fortified”; #Hebrew “in them,” which is redundant; #Literally “in all of your land”]

⁵³And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and your daughters, whom Yahweh your God gave to you, during the siege and during the distress your enemy inflicts upon you.[#Literally “in siege and in distress”]

⁵⁴The most refined and the very sensitive man among you shall be mean with his brother and against his beloved wife and against the rest of his children that he has left over,[#Or “kindly disposed”; #Literally “shall be bad/evil his eye against his brother”; #Literally “against the wife of his lap”; #Or “remainder”]

⁵⁵by refraining from giving to even one of them any of the meat of his children that he eats, because there is not anything that is left over for him during the siege and distress that your enemy inflicts upon you.[#Literally “from giving”; #Literally “in the siege and distress”]

⁵⁶The most refined and the most delicate woman among you, who shall not venture to put the sole of her foot on the ground from being so delicate and from such gentleness, shall be mean to her beloved husband and against her son and against her daughter,[#Or “would”; #Literally “shall be bad her eye against the husband of her lap”]

⁵⁷and even concerning her afterbirth that goes out from between her feet and also concerning her children that she bears, because she eats them for lack of anything in secret during the siege and during the distress that your enemy inflicts upon her in your towns.[#Literally “the going out”; #Literally “in the siege and in the distress”; #Literally “gates”]

⁵⁸“If you do not diligently observe all the words of this law written in this scroll by revering this glorious and awesome name, Yahweh your God,[#Literally “you observe to do”]

⁵⁹then Yahweh shall overwhelm you with your plagues and the plagues of your offspring, severe plagues and lasting illnesses, grievous and enduring.

⁶⁰And he shall bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt concerning which you were in dread because of them.[#Literally “you dreaded”; #Literally “from their presence”]

⁶¹Also any illness and any plague that is not written in the scroll of this law, he shall bring them, Yahweh, upon you until you are destroyed.[#Or “each illness and each plague”]

⁶²And you shall remain only a few people in place of the fact you were formerly as the stars of heaven as far as number is concerned, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.[#Literally “with people of few”]

⁶³And then as Yahweh delighted over you to make you prosperous to make you numerous, so Yahweh shall delight over you to exterminate you and to destroy you, and so you shall be plucked from the land that you are going there to take possession of it.[#Literally “And it will happen”; #Literally “to do good with you”; #Or “to cause you to perish”]

⁶⁴And Yahweh shall scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth up to the other end of the earth, and there you shall serve other gods that you have not known nor your ancestors, gods of wood and stone.[#Hebrew “and”; #Or “your fathers”]

⁶⁵And among these nations you shall not find rest, and there shall not be a resting place for the sole of your foot, and Yahweh shall give you there an anxious heart and a weakening of eyes and a languishing of your inner self.[#Or “a failure of eyes”; #Or “soul”]

⁶⁶And your life shall hang in doubt before you, and you shall be startled night and day, and you shall not be confident of your life.[#Literally “they shall be your life hanging for you in front”; #Or “in fear”]

⁶⁷In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it was evening!’ and in the evening you shall say ‘If only it was morning!’ because of the dread of your heart that you shall feel, and because of the sight of your eyes that you shall see.[#Literally “Who shall give evening?”; #Literally “Who shall give morning?”]

⁶⁸And Yahweh shall bring you back to Egypt in ships by the route that I promised to you that ‘You shall not see it again!’ And you shall sell yourself there to your enemies as slaves and as female slaves, but there will not be a buyer.”[#Literally “spoke”; #Literally “you shall not do again further to see it/her”]