1If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.2All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:3You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.4The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock – the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.5Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.6You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.7The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.8The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.9The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him.10Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will fear you.11The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity – in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground – in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you.12The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.13The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.14Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.
Curses for disobedience
15However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:16You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.17Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.18The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.19You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.20The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.[1]21The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.22The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.23The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you 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 cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.26Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no-one to frighten them away.27The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumours, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.28The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.29At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no-one to rescue you.30You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.31Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no-one will rescue them.32Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.33A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labour produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.34The sights you see will drive you mad.35The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.36The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.37You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.38You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it.39You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.40You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.41You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity.42Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.43The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.44They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail.45All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.46They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants for ever.47Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity,48therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.49The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,50a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young.51They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no corn, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.52They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.53Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.54Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children,55and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.56The most gentle and sensitive woman among you – so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot – will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter57the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.58If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name – the Lord your God –59the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.60He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.61The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.62You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God.63Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.64Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods – gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.65Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting-place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.66You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.67In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening, ‘If only it were morning!’ – because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.68The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, 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)