Blessings for Obedience

28:1 “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being
careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord
your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all
these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the
voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and
blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your
womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the
increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be
your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be when you come
in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated
before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you
seven ways. 8 The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns
and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that
the Lord your God is giving you. 9 The Lord will establish you as a
people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the
commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10 And all the
peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the
Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will make you
abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your
livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord
swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you his good
treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and
to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations,
but you shall not borrow. 13 And the Lord will make you the head and not
the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the
commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being
careful to do them, 14 and if you do not turn aside from any of the
words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go
after other gods to serve them.
Curses for Disobedience

15 “But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be
careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you
today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. 16
Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 Cursed shall
be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of
your herds and the young of your flock. 19 Cursed shall you be when you
come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

20 “The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all
that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on
account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. 21 The
Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off
the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 22 The Lord
will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and
fiery heat, and with drought [1] and with blight and with mildew. They
shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And the heavens over your head
shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will
make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on
you until you are destroyed.

25 “The Lord will 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 be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And your dead
body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the
earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will
strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch,
of which you cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness
and blindness and confusion of mind, 29 and you shall grope at noonday,
as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.
[2] And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there
shall be no one to help you. 30 You shall betroth a wife, but another
man shall ravish her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell
in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit. 31
Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat any
of it. Your donkey shall be seized before your face, but shall not be
restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies, but there
shall be no one to help you. 32 Your sons and your daughters shall be
given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing
for them all day long, but you shall be helpless. 33 A nation that you
have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your
labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, 34 so
that you are driven mad by the sights that your eyes see. 35 The Lord
will strike you on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of
which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of
your head.

36 “The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a
nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall
serve other gods of wood and stone. 37 And you shall become a horror, a
proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you
away. 38 You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in
little, for the locust shall consume it. 39 You shall plant vineyards
and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the
grapes, for the worm shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees
throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with
the oil, for your olives shall drop off. 41 You shall father sons and
daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into
captivity. 42 The cricket [3] shall possess all your trees and the fruit
of your ground. 43 The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and
higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 He shall
lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and
you shall be the tail.

45 “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you
till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord
your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded
you. 46 They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring
forever. 47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness
and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48
therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against
you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he
will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49 The
Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the
earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not
understand, 50 a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show
mercy to the young. 51 It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the
fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it also shall not leave
you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your
flock, until they have caused you to perish.

52 “They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and
fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your
land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your
land, which the Lord your God has given you. 53 And you shall eat the
fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord
your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your
enemies shall distress you. 54 The man who is the most tender and
refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he
embraces, [4] and to the last of the children whom he has left, 55 so
that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children
whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, in the siege and in
the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns.
56 The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to
set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and
tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces, [5] to her son and to
her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and
her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat
them secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy
shall distress you in your towns.

58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are
written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name,
the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring
extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and
sicknesses grievous and lasting. 60 And he will bring upon you again all
the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to
you. 61 Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in
the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are
destroyed. 62 Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you
shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the
Lord your God. 63 And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and
multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you
and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are
entering to take possession of it.

64 “And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the
earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and
stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And among these
nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place
for the sole of your foot, but the Lord will give you there a trembling
heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. 66 Your life shall hang
in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no
assurance of your life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it
were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’
because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that
your eyes shall see. 68 And the Lord will bring you back in ships to
Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and
there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and
female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”