Deuteronomy 28

¹ ‘But if you obey the voice of Yahweh your God faithfully, keeping and observing all those commandments of his that I enjoin on you today, Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

² All the blessings that follow shall come up with you and overtake you if only you obey the voice of Yahweh your God.

³ ‘You will be blessed in the town and blessed in the country.

⁴ Blessed will be the fruit of your body, the produce of your soil, the issue of your livestock, the increase of your cattle, the young of your flock.

⁵ Blessed will be your pannier and your bread bin.

⁶ Blessed will you be coming in, and blessed going out.

⁷ The enemies that rise against you Yahweh will conquer for your sake; they will come at you by one way and flee before you by seven.

⁸ Yahweh will summon a blessing for you in your barns and in all your undertakings, and will bless you in the land that Yahweh is giving you.

⁹ ‘Yahweh will make of you a people consecrated to himself as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and follow his ways.

¹⁰ All the peoples of the earth will see that you bear the name of Yahweh and will go in fear of you.

¹¹ Yahweh will give you great store of good things, the fruit of your body, the fruit of your cattle and the produce of your soil, in the land he swore to your fathers he would give you.

¹² Yahweh will open the heavens to you, his rich treasure house, to give you seasonable rain for your land and to bless all the work of your hands. You will make many nations your subjects, yet you will be subject to none.

¹³ Yahweh will put you at the head, not at the tail; you will always be on top and never underneath, if you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God that I enjoin on you today, keeping and observing them,

¹⁴ not swerving to right or left from any of the works I enjoin on you today by following any other gods and serving them.

¹⁵ ‘But if you do not obey the voice of Yahweh your God nor keep and observe all those commandments and statutes of his that I enjoin on you today, then all the curses that follow shall come up with you and overtake you.

¹⁶ ‘You will be accursed in the town and accursed in the country.

¹⁷ Accursed will be your pannier and your bread bin.

¹⁸ Accursed will be the fruit of your body, the produce of your soil, the increase of your cattle, the young of your flock.

¹⁹ Accursed will you be coming in, and accursed going out.

²⁰ ‘Yahweh will send on you curses, frustration, imprecation in return for all your offerings, until you are destroyed and speedily perish for your perverse behaviour, and for deserting me.

²¹ Yahweh will infect you with the plague until it has consumed you on the land which you are entering to make your own.

²² Yahweh will strike you down with consumption, fever, inflammation, burning fever, drought, blight, mildew, and these will pursue you to your ruin.

²³ The heavens above you will be brass, the earth beneath you iron.

²⁴ Yahweh will turn the rain on your land to dust and sand; it will fall on you from the heavens until you perish.

²⁵ Yahweh will have you defeated in front of your enemies; you will come at them by one way and flee before them by seven; and you will become a thing of horror for all the kingdoms of the earth.

²⁶ Your carcase will be carrion for all the birds of heaven and all the beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

²⁷ ‘Yahweh will strike you down with Egyptian boils, with swellings in the groin, with scurvy and the itch for which you will find no cure.

²⁸ Yahweh will strike you down with madness, blindness, distraction of mind,

²⁹ until you grope your way at noontide like a blind man groping in the dark, and your steps will lead you nowhere. ‘You will never be anything but exploited and plundered continually, and no one will come to your help.

³⁰ Betroth a wife, another man will have her; build a house, you will not live in it; plant a vineyard, you will not gather its first-fruits.

³¹ Your ox will be killed before your eyes and you will eat none of it; your donkey will be carried off in your presence and not be restored to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will come to your help.

³² Your sons and daughters will be handed over to another people, and every day you will wear your eyes out watching eagerly for them, while your hands are powerless.

³³ A nation you do not know will eat the fruit of your soil and of your labour. You will never be anything but exploited and crushed continually.

³⁴ You will be driven mad by the sights your eyes will see.

³⁵ Yahweh will strike you down with foul boils on knee and leg, for which you will find no cure, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.

³⁶ ‘Yahweh will send you and the king you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and of stone.

³⁷ You will become a thing of horror, a proverb, and a byword to all the peoples among whom Yahweh takes you.

³⁸ ‘You will cast seed in plenty on the fields but harvest little, for the locust will devour it.

³⁹ You will plant and till your vineyards but not drink wine or gather grapes, for the grub will eat them up.

⁴⁰ You will grow olive trees throughout your territory but not anoint yourself with oil, for your olive trees will be cut down.

⁴¹ You will father sons and daughters but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.

⁴² All your trees and all the produce of your soil will become the prey of insects.

⁴³ ‘The stranger living among you will rise higher and higher at your expense, and you yourselves sink lower and lower.

⁴⁴ He will make you his chattel, you will not make him yours; he it is who will be at the head, and you at the tail.

⁴⁵ All these curses will come up with you, will pursue you and overtake you until you perish for not obeying the voice of Yahweh your God by keeping those commandments and laws of his that he enjoined on you.

⁴⁶ They will be a sign and a wonder over you and your descendants for ever.

⁴⁷ ‘For failing to serve Yahweh your God in the joy and happiness that come from an abundance of all things,

⁴⁸ you will submit to the enemies that Yahweh will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, utter destitution. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until you perish.

⁴⁹ ‘Yahweh will raise against you a far-off nation from the ends of the earth, like an eagle taking wing. This will be a nation whose language you do not understand,

⁵⁰ a nation grim of face, with neither respect for the old, nor pity for the young.

⁵¹ They will eat the offspring of your cattle and the produce of your soil until you perish, leaving you neither corn nor wine nor oil nor increase of your cattle nor young of your flock, until they make an end of you.

⁵² They will besiege you in all your towns until your loftiest and most strongly fortified walls collapse, the walls on which you relied within your frontiers. They will besiege you in all the towns that Yahweh gives you.

⁵³ During the siege and in the distress to which your enemies will reduce you, you will eat the fruit of your body, the flesh of those sons and daughters of yours whom Yahweh has given you.

⁵⁴ The tenderest and most fastidious among you will glower at his brother, even at the wife he cherishes and at the children that are left to him,

⁵⁵ grudging them a share in the flesh of those children of his that he is eating, for during the siege and in the distress to which your enemies will reduce you in all your towns, there will be nothing left to him.

⁵⁶ The tenderest and most fastidious woman among you, so tender, so fastidious that she has never ventured to set the sole of her foot to the ground, will glower at the husband she cherishes, even at her son and her daughter,

⁵⁷ and hide from them the afterbirth of her womb and the child she bears to eat them, so utter will be the destitution during the siege and in the distress to which your enemies will reduce you in all your towns.

⁵⁸ ‘If you do not keep and observe all the words of this Law that are written in this book, in the fear of this name of glory and awe: Yahweh your God,

⁵⁹ Yahweh will strike you down with monstrous plagues, you and your descendants: with plagues grievous and lasting, diseases pernicious and enduring.

⁶⁰ Once more he will bring on you the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will infect you.

⁶¹ Further, Yahweh will bring on you every sickness, every plague, not mentioned in the Book of this Law, until you perish.

⁶² There will be only a handful of you left, you who were as many as the stars of heaven. ‘For not obeying the voice of Yahweh your God,

⁶³ just as Yahweh took delight in giving you prosperity and increase, so now he will take delight in bringing you ruin and destruction. You will be torn from the land which you are entering to make your own.

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

⁶⁵ Among these nations there will be no repose for you, no rest for the sole of your foot; Yahweh will give you a quaking heart, weary eyes, halting breath.

⁶⁶ Your life from the outset will be a burden to you; night and day you will go in fear, uncertain of your life.

⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, “How I wish it were evening!”, and in the evening, “How I wish it were morning!”, such terror will grip your heart, such sights your eyes will see.

⁶⁸ Yahweh will take you back to Egypt by sea and by land, though I had promised you: You will not see it again. And there you will want to sell yourselves to your enemies as serving men and women, but no one will buy you.’

⁶⁹ These are the words of the covenant which Yahweh ordered Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.