Deuteronomy 28

28 ¹If you faithfully listen to the voice of your Father, being careful to do all his commandments I give you today, your Father will set you high above all the nations of the earth. ²All these blessings will come on you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of your Father: ³Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be in the field. ⁴Blessed will be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your livestock—the young of your herds and flocks. ⁵Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl. ⁶Blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out. ⁷Your Father will strike down before you the enemies who rise against you. They will come at you one way and flee from you seven ways. ⁸Your Father will command the blessing on you in your barns and everything you put your hand to, and bless you in the land your Father is giving you. ⁹Your Father will establish you as a holy people to himself, as he swore to you, if you keep your Father's commands and walk in his ways. ¹⁰Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of our Father, and they will fear you. ¹¹Your Father will make you overflow with prosperity—the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your livestock, the fruit of your ground—in the land your Father swore to your fathers to give you. ¹²Your Father will open for you his good treasury, the heavens, to give your land's rain in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but not borrow. ¹³Your Father will make you the head, not the tail, always rising, never falling, if you listen to the commandments of your Father I command you today, carefully doing them. ¹⁴Do not turn from any of the words I command you today, right or left, to follow other gods and serve them.

When They Turn Away

¹⁵But if you will not listen to your Father's voice, carefully doing all his commandments and statutes I am commanding you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: ^a a v15 These warnings come from the heart of a Father, not a distant judge — the curses describe the unraveling that follows life lived against the Maker's design, and our Father grieves them even as he names them. ¹⁶Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the field. ¹⁷Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl. ¹⁸Cursed be the fruit of your womb and of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. ¹⁹Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out. ²⁰Your Father will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, for the evil of your deeds in abandoning me. ²¹Your Father will make the plague cling to you until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. ²²Your Father will strike you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, burning heat, drought, blight, and mildew; they will pursue you until you perish. ²³The heavens over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. ²⁴Your Father will turn your land's rain to powder and dust; it will fall from the heavens on you until you are destroyed. ²⁵Your Father will have you struck down before your enemies. You will go out one way against them but flee seven ways, and become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the sky and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away. ²⁷Your Father will strike you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, festering sores, and the itch, none of which can be healed. ²⁸Your Father will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with confusion of mind. ²⁹At noon you will grope like the blind in the dark, and not succeed in your ways. You will be only oppressed and robbed continually, with no one to save you. ³⁰You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but not enjoy its fruit. ³¹Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you won't eat from it. Your donkey will be seized from you and not returned. Your flock will be given to your enemies, with no one to rescue you. ³²Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people as your eyes watch, longing for them all day, but your hand will be powerless. ³³A people you do not know will eat your land's produce and all your labor; you will only be oppressed and crushed continually. ³⁴And you will be driven mad by what your eyes will see. ³⁵Your Father will strike you with severe, incurable boils on your knees and legs, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. ³⁶Your Father will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all peoples where your Father drives you. ³⁸You will carry much seed to the field but harvest little, for the locust will consume it. ³⁹You'll plant and tend vineyards, but not drink the wine or gather grapes—the worm will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout your territory, but never anoint yourself with oil, because your olives drop off. ⁴¹You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, for they will go into captivity. ⁴²The whirring locust will take possession of all your trees and the fruit of your ground. ⁴³The foreigner among you will rise higher and higher above you; you sink lower and lower. ⁴⁴He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head; you the tail.

⁴⁵All these curses will come on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of your Father, to keep his commandments and statutes that he commanded you. ⁴⁶They will be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. ⁴⁷Because you did not serve your Father with joy and a glad heart when you had everything in abundance, ⁴⁸you will serve the enemies your Father sends against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and dire poverty. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he destroys you. ⁴⁹Your Father will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, swooping down like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰a fierce-faced nation that will show no respect to the old or mercy to the young. ⁵¹They will devour your livestock's offspring and your ground's fruit until you are destroyed, leaving you no grain, new wine, or oil, no young of your herds or young of your flocks, until they make you perish. ⁵²They will besiege you in all your towns until your high, fortified walls you trust in come down throughout your land. They will besiege you within all the towns throughout the land your Father has given you. ⁵³Then, in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters your Father gave you. ⁵⁴The gentlest, most refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and his surviving children, ⁵⁵refusing to share with any of them his children's flesh that he is eating, since nothing else is left him in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you within all your towns. ⁵⁶The gentlest, most refined woman among you, so refined she'd never so much as set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces, and her own son and daughter, ⁵⁷even the afterbirth from between her feet and the children she bears, for she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else, during the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you within your towns. ⁵⁸If you are not careful to obey all the words of this law written in this book, to fear this glorious and awesome name—the Father, ⁵⁹then your Father will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your offspring—severe and lasting plagues, severe and lasting sicknesses. ⁶⁰He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt you dreaded, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹Every sickness and plague not written in this book of the law, your Father will also bring on you until you are destroyed. ⁶²You who were as numerous as the sky's stars will be left few, because you did not listen to your Father's voice. ⁶³Just as your Father delighted to do you good and multiply you, so your Father will delight to ruin and destroy you, and you will be torn from the land you are entering to possess. ⁶⁴Your Father will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone, unknown to you and your fathers. ⁶⁵Among those nations you will find no rest, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There your Father will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. ⁶⁶Your life will hang in doubt before you. Night and day you will dread, never sure of your life. ⁶⁷In the morning you'll say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!"—from the dread filling your heart and the sights your eyes will see. ⁶⁸Your Father will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way I said you would never see again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.