1Make sure you obey the LORD your God completely. Be careful to obey all his commands. I’m giving them to you today. If you do these things, the LORD will honour you more than all the other nations on earth.2If you obey the LORD your God, here are the blessings that will come to you and remain with you.3You will be blessed in the cities. You will be blessed out in the country.4Your children will be blessed. Your crops will be blessed. The young animals among your livestock will be blessed. That includes your calves and lambs.5Your baskets and bread pans will be blessed.6You will be blessed no matter where you go.7Enemies will rise up against you. But the LORD will help you win the battle over them. They will come at you from one direction. But they’ll run away from you in every direction.8The LORD your God will bless your barns with plenty of corn and other food. He will bless everything you do. He’ll bless you in the land he’s giving you.9The LORD your God will make you his holy people. He will set you apart for himself. He promised to do this. He promised to do it if you would keep his commands and live exactly as he wants you to live.10All the nations on earth will see that you belong to the LORD. And they will be afraid of you.11The LORD will give you more than you need. You will have many children. Your livestock will have many little ones. Your crops will do very well. All of that will happen in the land he promised to give you. He promised this to your people of long ago.12The LORD will open up the heavens. That’s where he stores his riches. He will send rain on your land at just the right time. He’ll bless everything you do. You will lend money to many nations. But you won’t have to borrow from any of them.13The LORD your God will make you leaders, not followers. Pay attention to his commands that I’m giving you today. Be careful to obey them. Then you will always be on top. You will never be on the bottom.14Don’t turn away from any of the commands I’m giving you today. Don’t turn to the right or the left. Don’t follow other gods. Don’t worship them.
Curses for not obeying the Lord
15But suppose you don’t obey the LORD your God. And you aren’t careful to obey all his commands and rules I’m giving you today. Then he will send curses on you. They’ll catch up with you. Here are those curses.16You will be cursed in the cities. You will be cursed out in the country.17Your baskets and bread pans will be cursed.18Your children will be cursed. Your crops will be cursed. Your calves and lambs will be cursed.19You will be cursed no matter where you go.20The LORD will send curses on you. You won’t know what’s going on. In everything you do, he will be angry with you. You will be destroyed suddenly and completely. This will happen because you did an evil thing when you deserted the LORD.21He will send all kinds of diseases on you. He’ll send them until he has destroyed you. He’ll remove you from the land you are entering to take as your own.22The LORD will make you ill and very weak. He will strike you with fever and swelling. He’ll send burning heat. There won’t be any rain. The hot winds will completely dry up your crops. All those things will happen until you die.23The sky above you will be like bronze. The ground beneath you will be like iron.24The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder. It will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.25The LORD will help your enemies win the battle over you. You will come at them from one direction. But you will run away from them in every direction. All the kingdoms on earth will be completely shocked when they see you.26Birds and wild animals will eat up your dead bodies. There won’t be anyone left to scare them away.27The LORD will send boils on you, just like the ones he sent on the Egyptians. You will have growths in your bodies and boils on your skin. You will itch all over. No one will be able to heal you.28The LORD will make you lose your mind. He will make you blind. You won’t know what’s going on.29Even at noon you will have to feel your way around like a blind person in the dark. You won’t have success in anything you do. Day after day you will be robbed and treated badly. No one will be able to save you.30You and a woman will promise to marry each other. But another man will take her and rape her. You will build a house. But you won’t live in it. You will plant a vineyard. But you won’t eat a single grape from it.31Your ox will be killed right in front of your eyes. But you won’t eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you by force. And you will never get it back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. No one will be able to save them.32Your children will be given to another nation. Day after day you will watch for them to come back. But you will only wear out your eyes. You won’t be able to help your children.33A nation you don’t know anything about will eat what you work to produce on your land. You will only be treated badly as long as you live.34The things you see will make you lose your mind.35The LORD will send painful boils on your knees and legs. No one will be able to heal them. They will cover you from head to toe.36The LORD will drive you out of the land. And he will drive out the king you place over yourselves. All of you will go to another nation. You and your people of long ago didn’t know anything about them. There you will worship other gods. They will be made out of wood and stone.37You will look very bad to all the nations where the LORD sends you. They will be completely shocked when they see you. They will mock you and make fun of you.38You will plant many seeds in your field. But you will gather very little food. Locusts will eat it up.39You will plant vineyards and take care of them. But you won’t drink the wine. You won’t gather the grapes. Worms will eat them up.40You will have olive trees through your whole country. But you won’t use the oil. The olives will drop off the trees.41You will have children. But you won’t be able to keep them. They’ll be taken away as prisoners.42Large numbers of locusts will eat up the leaves on all your trees. They will also eat up the crops on your land.43Outsiders who live among you will become your leaders. They will rise higher and higher. But you will sink lower and lower.44They will lend money to you. But you won’t be able to lend money to them. They will be the leaders. But you will be the followers.45The LORD your God will send all these curses on you. They will follow you everywhere. They’ll catch up with you. You will be under the LORD’s curse until you are destroyed. That’s because you didn’t obey him. You didn’t keep the commands and rules he gave you.46These curses will remain as signs and awful judgments against you and your children after you for ever.47You didn’t serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness when times were good.48So he will send enemies against you. You will have to serve them. You will be hungry and thirsty. You will be naked and poor. The LORD will put the iron chains of slavery around your necks until he has destroyed you.49The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away. It will come from the ends of the earth. It will dive down on you like an eagle. You won’t understand that nation’s language.50Its people will look mean. They won’t have any respect for old people. They won’t show any kindness to young people.51They will eat up the young animals among your livestock. They’ll eat up the crops on your land. They’ll destroy you. They won’t leave you any corn, olive oil or fresh wine. They won’t leave you any calves or lambs. They’ll destroy you.52They’ll surround all the cities throughout your whole land. They’ll attack those cities until the high, strong walls you trust in fall down. That’s what will happen to the cities in the land the LORD your God is giving you.53Your enemies will surround you and attack you. They will make you suffer greatly. So you will eat your own children. You will eat the dead bodies of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you.54There may be a gentle and caring man among you. But he will treat his own brother badly. He’ll be just as mean to the wife he loves and to any of his children who are still alive.55He won’t give to a single one of them any part of the dead bodies of his children that he’s eating. It will be all he has left to eat. That’s how much your enemies will make you suffer when they surround all your cities and attack them.56There may be a gentle and caring woman among you. She wouldn’t even touch the ground with her feet without first putting her sandals on. But she will not share anything with the husband she loves. She won’t share with her own children either.57She will eat what comes out of her body after she has a baby. Then she’ll even eat her baby. She won’t share it with anyone in her family. In her great hunger she’ll plan to eat it in secret. There won’t be anything else for her to eat because the city she lives in will be surrounded. That’s an example of how much your enemies will make you suffer when they are attacking your cities.58Be careful to follow all the words of this law. They are written in this scroll. Have respect for the glorious and wonderful name of the LORD your God. If you don’t,59he will send terrible plagues on you and your children after you. He’ll send horrible and lasting troubles. He’ll make you very ill for a long time.60He’ll bring on you all the diseases you were afraid of getting when you were in Egypt. You won’t be able to get rid of them.61The LORD will also bring on you all other kinds of disease and trouble. I haven’t even written those down in this Book of the Law. You will be destroyed.62At one time you were as many as the stars in the sky. But there will only be a few of you left. That’s because you didn’t obey the LORD your God.63It pleased the LORD to give you success and to cause there to be many of you. But it will please him just as much to wipe you out and destroy you. You will be removed from the land you are entering to take as your own.64Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations. He’ll spread you around from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship statues of gods made out of wood and stone. You and your people of long ago hadn’t known anything about those gods.65Among those nations you won’t find any peace. There won’t be any place where you can make your home and rest your feet. The LORD will give you minds filled with worry. He’ll give you eyes worn out from looking for help. You won’t have any hope in your hearts.66Your lives will always be in danger. You will be filled with fear night and day. You will never be sure you are safe.67In the morning you will say, ‘We wish it were evening!’ In the evening you will say, ‘We wish it were morning!’ Your hearts will be filled with fear. The things you see will terrify you.68The LORD will send you back to Egypt in ships. He’ll send you on a journey I said you should never have to make again. You will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves in Egypt. But no one will buy you.
Deuteronomy 28
English Standard Version
Blessings for Obedience
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. (Ex 15:26; Ex 23:22; Le 26:3; De 26:19; Isa 55:2)2And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. (De 28:15; Zec 1:6)3Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. (Ge 39:5)4Blessed 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. (Ge 49:25; Ex 23:26; De 7:13; De 30:9)5Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. (Ex 8:3; Ex 12:34; De 28:17)6Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. (Ps 121:8)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. (Ex 23:22; Ex 23:27; Le 26:7; De 28:25; 2Sa 22:38; Ps 18:37)8The 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. (Le 25:21; De 12:7; De 15:4; Ps 133:3)9The 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. (Ex 19:5; De 7:6; De 26:18; De 29:13)10And 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. (Nu 6:27; De 2:25; De 11:25; Isa 61:9)11And 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. (De 28:4; De 30:9)12The 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. (Le 26:4; De 11:14; De 14:29; De 15:6; De 28:44; Ps 37:26)13And 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, (Isa 9:14; Isa 19:15)14and 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. (De 5:32)
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. (Le 26:14; De 28:2; La 2:17; Da 9:11; Da 9:13; Mal 2:2)16Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. (De 28:3)17Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.18Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.19Cursed 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. (Jos 23:16; Ps 80:16; Isa 30:17; Isa 51:20; Isa 66:15; Mal 2:2)21The 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. (Le 26:25)22The 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. (Le 26:16; 1Ki 8:37; 2Ch 6:28; Am 4:9; Hag 2:17)23And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. (Le 26:19)24The 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. (Le 26:17; Le 26:37; De 28:7; De 32:30; Isa 30:17; Eze 23:46)26And 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. (1Sa 17:44; 1Sa 17:46; Ps 79:2; Jer 7:33; Jer 16:4; Jer 19:7; Jer 34:20)27The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. (Le 21:20; Le 22:22; De 28:35)28The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, (De 28:34; Zec 12:4)29and 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. (Job 5:14; Isa 59:10)30You 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. (Le 19:23; De 20:5; De 20:6; Jer 8:10; Am 5:11; Mic 6:15; Zep 1:13)31Your 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.32Your 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. (2Ch 29:9; Ne 5:5; Joe 3:6)33A 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,34so that you are driven mad by the sights that your eyes see. (De 28:67)35The 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. (De 28:27)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. (De 4:28; De 28:64; 2Ki 17:4; 2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 24:12; 2Ki 24:14; 2Ki 25:7; 2Ki 25:11; 2Ch 33:11; 2Ch 36:6; 2Ch 36:20; Jer 9:16; Jer 16:13)37And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away. (1Ki 9:7; 2Ch 7:20; Jer 24:9; Jer 25:9; Eze 14:8)38You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it. (Joe 1:4; Joe 2:25; Mic 6:15; Hag 1:6)39You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. (Zep 1:13)40You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. (Mic 6:15)41You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity. (La 1:5)42The cricket[3] shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground. (De 28:38)43The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. (De 28:13)44He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. (De 28:12; De 28:43)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. (De 28:15)46They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. (Isa 8:18)47Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, (Ne 9:35)48therefore 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. (Jer 28:14)49The 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, (Isa 5:26; Isa 28:11; Isa 33:19; Jer 5:15; Jer 6:22; Jer 48:40; Jer 49:22; La 4:19; Eze 17:3; Eze 17:12; Ho 8:1; Hab 1:8)50a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. (2Ch 36:17; Isa 47:6)51It 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. (De 28:33; Isa 62:8; Jer 5:17)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. (2Ki 17:5; 2Ki 25:1; 2Ki 25:4)53And 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. (Le 26:29; De 28:55; De 28:57; 2Ki 6:28; Jer 19:9; La 2:20; La 4:10; Eze 5:10)54The 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, (De 13:6; De 15:9)55so 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. (De 28:53)56The 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, (De 28:54; Isa 47:1)57her 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. (De 28:55)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, (Ex 6:3)59then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting.60And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. (De 7:15)61Every 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.62Whereas 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. (De 4:27; De 10:22; 2Ki 24:14; Ne 7:4; Jer 42:2)63And 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. (De 30:9; Pr 1:26; Isa 1:24; Jer 32:41; Eze 5:13; Zep 3:17)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. (Le 26:33; De 4:28; De 13:6; De 28:36; Jer 19:4; Jer 44:3)65And 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. (Le 26:16; Le 26:36; Am 9:4)66Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life.67In 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. (De 28:34; Job 7:3)68And 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.” (De 17:16; Jer 43:7; Ho 8:13; Ho 9:3)