Blessings on Obedience
1 “Now it shall come to pass,if you diligently obey the voice of theLordyour God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that theLordyour Godwill set you high above all nations of the earth.
2 And all these blessings shall come upon you andovertake you, because you obey the voice of theLordyour God:
3 “Blessedshallyoubein the city, and blessedshallyoubein the country.
4 “Blessedshallbethe fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
5 “Blessedshallbeyour basket and your kneading bowl.
6 “Blessedshallyoubewhen you come in, and blessedshallyoubewhen you go out.
7 “TheLordwill cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
8 “TheLordwillcommand the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which youset your hand, and He will bless you in the land which theLordyour God is giving you.
9 “TheLordwill establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of theLordyour God and walk in His ways.
10 Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you arecalled by the name of theLord, and they shall beafraid of you.
11 AndtheLordwill grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which theLordswore to your fathers to give you.
12 TheLordwill open to you His good treasure, the heavens,to give the rain to your land in its season, andto bless all the work of your hand.You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
13 And theLordwill makeyou the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of theLordyour God, which I command you today, and are careful to observethem.
14 So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day,tothe right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Curses on Disobedience
15 “But it shall come to pass,if you do not obey the voice of theLordyour God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 “Cursedshallyoubein the city, and cursedshallyoubein the country.
17 “Cursedshallbeyour basket and your kneading bowl.
18 “Cursedshallbethe fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
19 “Cursedshallyoubewhen you come in, and cursedshallyoubewhen you go out.
20 “TheLordwill send on youcursing,confusion, andrebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.
21 TheLordwill make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess.
22 TheLordwill strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, withscorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.
23 Andyour heavens whichareover your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under youshallbeiron.
24 TheLordwill change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 “TheLordwill cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frightenthemaway.
27 TheLordwill strike you withthe boils of Egypt, withtumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed.
28 TheLordwill strike you with madness and blindness andconfusion of heart.
29 And you shallgrope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall saveyou.
30 “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her;you shall build a house, butyou shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes.
31 Your oxshallbeslaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkeyshallbeviolently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheepshallbegiven to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescuethem.
32 Your sons and your daughtersshallbegiven toanother people, and your eyes shall look andfailwithlongingfor them all day long; andthereshallbeno strength in yourhand.
33 A nation whom you have not known shall eatthe fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually.
34 So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see.
35 TheLordwill strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
36 “TheLordwillbring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, andthere you shall serve other gods—wood and stone.
37 And you shall becomean astonishment, a proverb,and a byword among all nations where theLordwill drive you.
38 “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, forthe locust shall consume it.
39 You shall plant vineyards and tendthem,but you shall neither drinkofthewine nor gather thegrapes;for the worms shall eat them.
40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anointyourselfwith the oil; for your olives shall drop off.
41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; forthey shall go into captivity.
42 Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
43 “The alien whoisamong you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.
44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
45 “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of theLordyour God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.
46 And they shall be uponyou for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.
47 “Because you did not serve theLordyour God with joy and gladness of heart,for the abundance of everything,
48 therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom theLordwill send against you, inhunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and Hewill put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.
49 TheLordwill bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth,asswiftas the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand,
50 a nation of fierce countenance,which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young.
51 And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil,orthe increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.
52 “They shallbesiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which theLordyour God has given you.
53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom theLordyour God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.
54 The sensitive and very refined man among youwill be hostile toward his brother, towardthe wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind,
55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter,
57 her placenta which comes outfrom between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fearthis glorious and awesome name, THE Lord YOUR GOD,
59 then theLordwill bring upon you and your descendantsextraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses.
60 Moreover He will bring back on you allthe diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you.
61 Also every sickness and every plague, whichisnot written in this Book of the Law, will theLordbring upon you until you are destroyed.
62 Youshall be left few in number, whereas you wereas the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of theLordyour God.
63 And it shall be,thatjust as theLordrejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so theLordwill rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall beplucked from off the land which you go to possess.
64 “Then theLordwill scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, andthere you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone.
65 Andamong those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place;but there theLordwill give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, andanguish of soul.
66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life.
67 In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, andbecause of the sight which your eyes see.
68 “And theLordwill take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you,‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buyyou.”