DEUTERONOMY 28

But if you listen diligently to the voice of Yehowah your God and take care to observe all his commandments which I give you today, Yehowah your God will set you on high above all the nations of the earth; 2 and all these blessings shall come on you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of Yehowah 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 offspring of your cows and of the sheep of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough. 6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 Yehowah will cause your enemies who attack you to be struck down before your face; they will come out against you by one way, but will flee before you by seven ways. 8 Yehowah will command the blessing to you in your storehouses, and in all things to which you set your hands; and he will bless you in the land which Yehowah your God gives you. 9 Yehowah will confirm you to himself for a holy people, as he has sworn to you, when you keep the commandments of Yehowah your God and walk in his ways. 10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of Yehowah has been proclaimed over you, and they will fear you. 11 And Yehowah will cause you to abound in good things, in the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your ground, in the land which Yehowah swore to your fathers to give you. 12 Yehowah will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hands; and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. 13 So Yehowah will make you the head and not the tail, and you will be above only and not beneath, when you obey the commandments of Yehowah your God which I give you today, taking care to observe them. 14 And you shall not turn aside from any of the things which I command you today, to the right or the left, to follow other gods so as to serve them.

15 But if you will not listen to the voice of Yehowah your God and take care to observe all his commandments and statutes which I give you today, all these curses shall come on 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-trough. 18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the offspring of your cows and of the sheep of your flock. 19 Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

20 Yehowah will send cursing, anxiety, and rebuke on you, in all things which you set your hands to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly because of the evil of your deeds by which you have forsaken me. 21 Yehowah will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. 22 Yehowah will strike you down with consumption, fever, inflammation, and raging fever, and with drought,* blight, and mildew; and they will afflict you until you perish. 23 And the heavens over your head will be bronze, and the earth under you will be iron. 24 Yehowah will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from heaven until you are destroyed. * lit sword

25 Yehowah will cause you to be struck down before your enemies; you will go out against them by one way, and you will flee before them by seven ways; and you will be a thing of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And your carcass will be food for all the birds of the heavens and the animals of the earth, and no one will frighten them away. 27 Yehowah will strike you down with Egyptian boils, and with tumours, scabs, and the itch, for which you can find no cure. 28 Yehowah will strike you down with madness, blindness, and bewilderment; 29 and you will grope at noon like a blind man groping in pitch darkness, and you will get nowhere; and you are sure to be oppressed and plundered all your days, and no one will save you. 30 You will betroth a wife, but another man will ravish her; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not use it. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat it; your ass will be seized before your face, but it will not be restored to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, but there will be no one to rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will look and pine for them every day, while your hands remain powerless. 33 A people which you have not known will eat up the fruit of your ground and all your labour; and you are sure to be oppressed and crushed all your days; 34 and you will go mad because of the spectacle which you see. 35 Yehowah will strike you on the knees and thighs with malignant ulcers for which you can find no cure, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

36 Yehowah will send you and your king whom you set up over yourselves to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known; and there you will serve other gods, of wood and stone. 37 And you will become an abhorrence, a byword, and a taunt to all the peoples among whom Yehowah will lead you. 38 You will carry plenty of seed out into the fields, but you will gather only a little, for locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will drink no wine and store no grapes, for weevils will eat them up. 40 You will have olive trees all over your country, but you will not anoint yourselves with oil, for your olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but they will not belong to you, for they will go into captivity. 42 Locusts will prey upon all your trees and the fruit of your ground. 43 The settler among you will rise higher and higher above you, but you will sink lower and lower; 44 he will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, but you will be the tail. 45 So all these curses will fall on you, and pursue you and overtake you, till you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of Yehowah your God and keep his commandments and statutes which he gave you; 46 and they will be with you as a sign and a wonder, and with your descendants for ever.

47 Since you would not serve Yehowah your God with joy and gladness because of the abundance of everything, 48 you will therefore serve your enemies whom Yehowah will send against you, in hunger, thirst, and nakedness, and in destitution; and he will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he has destroyed you. 49 Yehowah will raise up against you a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, like a vulture swooping, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a ruthless nation which will not respect old age or show clemency to the young. 51 And that nation will eat up the fruit of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it will not leave you any corn, new wine, or oil, or your young cattle, or the increase of your flock, until it has made you perish. 52 And that nation will besiege you within all your gates, until your high and fortified walls in which you trust come down all over your land; and it will besiege you within all your gates all over your land which Yehowah your God has given you. 53 Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom Yehowah your God has given you, during the siege and the restriction with which your enemy will distress you. 54 The eye of a well-mannered and refined man among you will be hostile towards his brother, and towards the wife whom he cherishes, and towards the remaining sons whom he has spared, 55 so that he will not give to them any of the flesh of his sons whom he is eating, because he has nothing left because of the siege and restriction with which your enemy will distress you within all your gates. 56 The eye of a well-mannered and refined woman among you, who would not attempt to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her refinement and manners, will be hostile towards the husband whom she cherishes, and towards her son and her daughter; 57 for she will eat the afterbirth and her newborn babies secretly, because of the dire necessity caused by the siege and restriction with which your enemy will distress you within your gates.

58 If you will not take care to observe all the words of this law which are written on this scroll, and to fear this glorious and fearful name, Yehowah your God, 59 then Yehowah will bring exceptional plagues on you and your descendants, plagues great and persistent, diseases malignant and chronic. 60 And he will bring back on you all the sicknesses of Egypt which you dread, and they will cling to you. 61 Also Yehowah will bring on you diseases and plagues which are not written on the scroll of this law, until you are destroyed. 62 And you will be left few in number, though you were like the stars of heaven for multitude, because you did not obey the voice of Yehowah your God. 63 And just as Yehowah rejoiced over you to do good to you and to multiply you, so Yehowah will rejoice over you to make you perish and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked out of the land which you are going to possess. 64 Then Yehowah will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will serve other gods which neither you nor your fathers have known, of wood and stone. 65 And among those nations you will find no ease and no rest for the sole of your foot; but there Yehowah will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a sapping of strength. 66 And your life will be in suspense before you; and you will have dread night and day, and will feel hopeless all your life; 67 in the morning you will say, O that evening would come! and in the evening you will say, O that morning would come! because of the dread which lies in your heart, and because of the spectacle before your eyes. 68 Then Yehowah will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I told you, You shall never see it again; and there you will be put on sale to your enemies as slaves, both men and women, but there will be no buyer.