Deuteronomy 28:15-48

The Blessings at Mount Gerizim

¹⁵“But it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to be careful to follow all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶“Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the country.

¹⁷“Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

¹⁸“Cursed will be the children of your womb, the produce of your ground, the newborn of your herd, and the offspring of your flock.

¹⁹“Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.

²⁰“The Lord will send against you curses, panic, and rebuke, in everything you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have abandoned Me. ²¹The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has eliminated you from the land where you are entering to take possession of it. ²²The Lord will strike you with consumption, inflammation, fever, feverish heat, and with the sword, with blight, and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish. ²³The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. ²⁴The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

²⁵“The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways from their presence, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶Your dead bodies will serve as food for all birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

²⁷“The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, the festering rash, and with scabies, from which you cannot be healed. ²⁸The Lord will strike you with insanity, blindness, and with confusion of mind; ²⁹and you will be groping about at noon, just as a person who is blind gropes in the darkness, and you will not be successful in your ways; but you will only be oppressed and robbed all the time, with no one to save you. ³⁰You will betroth a woman, but another man will violate her; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not make use of its fruit. ³¹Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey will be snatched away from you, and will not be restored to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. ³²Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them constantly; but there will be nothing you can do. ³³A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your ground and every product of your labor, and you will never be anything but oppressed and mistreated continually. ³⁴You will also be driven insane by the sight of what you see. ³⁵The Lord will strike you on the knees and thighs with severe boils from which you cannot be healed, and strike you from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. ³⁶The Lord will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, made of wood and stone. ³⁷And you will become an object of horror, a song of mockery, and an object of taunting among all the peoples where the Lord drives you.

³⁸“You will bring out a great amount of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locust will devour it. ³⁹You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor bring in the harvest, because the worm will eat it. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will drop off prematurely. ⁴¹You will father sons and daughters but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. ⁴²The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground. ⁴³The stranger who is among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower. ⁴⁴He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail.

⁴⁵“So all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. ⁴⁶And they will become a sign and a wonder against you and your descendants forever.

⁴⁷“Since you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a cheerful heart, in gratitude for the abundance of all things, ⁴⁸you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and devoid of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.