Deuteronomy 28

Chapter 28

Blessings for Obedience

1 “If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the world.

2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the LORD your God:
3 Your towns and your fields
will be blessed.4 Your children and your crops
will be blessed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
will be blessed.5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
will be blessed.6 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
you will be blessed.

7 “The LORD will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!

8 “The LORD will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
9 “If you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways, the LORD will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do.

10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.
11 “The LORD will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops.12 The LORD will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them.13 If you listen to these commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom.

14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

Curses for Disobedience

15 “But if you refuse to listen to the LORD your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:
16 Your towns and your fields
will be cursed.17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
will be cursed.18 Your children and your crops
will be cursed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
will be cursed.19 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
you will be cursed.20 “The LORD himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me.21 The LORD will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy.22 The LORD will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die.23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron.

24 The LORD will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.
25 “The LORD will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

26 Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.
27 “The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.28 The LORD will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.

29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.
30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit.31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you.32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them.33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment.34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you.

35 The LORD will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.
36 “The LORD will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone!

37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the LORD sends you.
38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops.39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines.40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens.41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity.

42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.
43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker.

44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!
45 “If you refuse to listen to the LORD your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed.46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever.47 If you do not serve the LORD your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received,

48 you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The LORD will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.
49 “The LORD will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand,50 a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death.

52 They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the LORD your God has given you.
53 “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you.54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children.55 He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.56 The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter.

57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.
58 “If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the LORD your God,59 then the LORD will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick.60 He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief.61 The LORD will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed.

62 Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the LORD your God.
63 “Just as the LORD has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the LORD will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy.64 For the LORD will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!65 There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the LORD will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair.66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you.

68 Then the LORD will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”

DEUTERONOMY 28

The [Lord] Will Bless You //if You Obey

Moses said to Israel:

1-2  t Today I am giving you the laws and teachings of the [Lord] your God. Always obey them, and the [Lord] will make Israel the most famous and important nation on earth, and he will bless you in many ways.

3 The [Lord] will make your businesses and your farms successful.

4 You will have many children. You will harvest large crops, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats will produce many young.

5 You will have plenty of breadt to eat.

6 The [Lord] will make you successful in your daily work.

7 The [Lord] will help you defeat your enemies and make them scatter in all directions.

8 The [Lord] your God is giving you the land, and he will make sure you are successful in everything you do. Your harvests will be so large that your storehouses will be full.
9 If you follow and obey the [Lord], he will make you his own special people, just as he promised.

10 Then everyone on earth will know that you belong to the [Lord], and they will be afraid of you.

11 The [Lord] will give you a lot of children and make sure that your animals give birth to many young. The [Lord] promised your ancestors that this land would be yours, and he will make it produce large crops for you.

12 The [Lord] will open the storehouses of the skies where he keeps the rain, and he will send rain on your land at just the right times. He will make you successful in everything you do. You will have plenty of money to lend to other nations, but you won't need to borrow any yourself.
13 Obey the laws and teachings that I'm giving you today, and the [Lord] your God will make Israel a leader among the nations, and not a follower. Israel will be wealthy and powerful, not poor and weak.

14 But you must not reject any of his laws and teachings or worship other gods.

The [Lord] Will Put Curses //on You if You Disobey

(Leviticus 26.14-46)

Moses said:

15 Israel, today I am giving you the laws and teachings of the [Lord] your God. And if you don't obey them all, he will put many curses on you.

16 Your businesses and farms will fail.

17 You won't have enough breadt to eat.

18 You'll have only a few children, your crops will be small, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats won't produce many young.

19 The [Lord] will make you fail in everything you do.

20 No matter what you try to accomplish, the [Lord] will confuse you, and you will feel his anger. You won't last long, and you may even meet with disaster, all because you rejected the [Lord].

21-23 The [Lord] will send terrible diseases to attack you, and you will never be well again. You will suffer with burning fever and swelling and pain until you die somewhere in the land that you captured.
The [Lord] will make the sky overhead seem like a bronze roof that keeps out the rain, and the ground under your feet will become as hard as iron. Your crops will be scorched by the hot east wind or ruined by mildew.

24 He will send dust and sandstorms instead of rain, and you will be wiped out.
25 The [Lord] will let you be defeated by your enemies, and you will scatter in all directions. You will be a horrible sight for the other nations to see,

26 and no one will disturb the birds and wild animals while they eat your dead bodies.
27 The [Lord] will make you suffer with diseases that will cause oozing sores or crusty itchy patches on your skin or boils like the ones that are common in Egypt. And there will be no cure for you! 28 You will become insane and go blind. The [Lord] will make you so confused,

29 that even in bright sunshine you will have to feel your way around like a blind person, who cannot tell day from night. For the rest of your life, people will beat and rob you, and no one will be able to stop them.
30 A man will be engaged to a woman, but before they can get married, she will be raped by enemy soldiers. Some of you will build houses, but never get to live in them. If you plant a vineyard, you won't be around long enough to enjoy the first harvest. 31 Your cattle will be killed while you watch, but you won't get to eat any of the meat. Your donkeys and sheep will be stolen from you, and no one will be around to force your enemies to give them back.

32 Your sons and daughters will be dragged off to a foreign country, while you stand there helpless. And even if you watch for them until you go blind, you will never see them again.

33 You will work hard on your farms, but everything you harvest will be eaten by foreigners, who will mistreat you and abuse you for the rest of your life.
34 What you see will be so horrible that you will go insane,

35 and the [Lord] will punish you from head to toe with boils that never heal.
36 The [Lord] will let you and your king be taken captive to a country that you and your ancestors have never even heard of, and there you will have to worship idolst made of wood and stone.

37 People of nearby countries will shudder when they see your terrible troubles, but they will still make fun of you.
38 You will plant a lot of seed, but gather a small harvest, because locustst will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and work hard at taking care of them, but you won't gather any grapes, much less get any wine, because the vines themselves will be eaten by worms.

40 Even if your olive trees grow everywhere in your country, the olives will fall off before they are ready, and there won't be enough olive oil for combing your hair.t

41 Even your children will be taken as prisoners of war.

42 Locustst will eat your crops and strip your trees of leaves and fruit.
43 Foreigners in your towns will become wealthy and powerful, while you become poor and powerless.

44 You will be so short of money that you will have to borrow from those foreigners. They will be the leaders in the community, and you will be the followers.

More Curses //for Disobedience

Moses said:

46 Then everyone will look at you and your descendants and realize that the [Lord] has placed you under a curse.
47 If the [Lord] makes you wealthy, but you don't joyfully worship and honor him,

48 he will send enemies to attack you and make you their slaves. Then you will live in poverty with nothing to eat, drink, or wear, and your owners will work you to death.
49 Foreigners who speak a strange language will be sent to attack you without warning, just like an eagle swooping down. 50 They won't show any mercy, and they will have no respect for old people or pity for children.

51 They will take your cattle, sheep, goats, grain, wine, and olive oil, then leave you to starve.
52 All over the land that the [Lord] your God gave you, the enemy army will surround your towns. You may feel safe inside your town walls, but the enemy will tear them down, 53 while you wait in horror. Finally, you will get so hungry that you will eat the sons and daughters that the [Lord] gave you. 54-55 Because of hunger, a man who had been gentle and kind will eat his own children and refuse to share the meal with his brother or wife or with his other children.

56-57 t A woman may have grown up in such luxury that she never had to put a foot on the ground. But times will be so bad that she will secretly eat both her newborn baby and the afterbirth, without sharing any with her husband or her other children.

Disobedience //Brings Destruction

Moses said to Israel:

61 Remember! If the [Lord] decides to destroy your nation, he can use any disease or disaster, not just the ones written in The Book of God's Law.
62 There are as many of you now as the stars in the sky, but if you disobey the [Lord] your God, only a few of you will be left.

63 The [Lord] is happy to make you successful and to help your nation grow while you conquer the land. But if you disobey him, he will be just as happy to pull you up by your roots.
64 Those of you that survive will be scattered to every nation on earth, and you will have to worship stone and wood idolst that never helped you or your ancestors. 65 You will be restless—always longing for home, but never able to return. 66 You will live in constant fear of death.

67 Each morning you will wake up to such terrible sights that you will say, “I wish it were night!” But at night you will be terrified and say, “I wish it were day!”
68 I told you never to go back to Egypt. But now the [Lord] himself will load you on ships and send you back. Then you will even try to sell yourselves as slaves, but no one will be interested.