Deuteronomy 28:15–45

Curses from the Lord

¹⁵Obey the Lord your God, and faithfully follow all his commands and laws that I am giving you today. If you don’t, all these curses will come to you and stay close to you: 

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. 

¹⁷The grain you harvest and the bread you bake will be cursed. 

¹⁸You will be cursed. You will have few children. Your land will have few crops. Your cattle will be cursed with few calves, and your flocks will have few lambs and kids. 

¹⁹You will be cursed when you come and cursed when you go. 

²⁰The Lord will send you curses, panic, and frustration in everything you do until you’re destroyed and quickly disappear for the evil you will do by abandoning the Lord. ²¹The Lord will send one plague after another on you until he wipes you out of the land you’re about to enter and take possession of. ²²The Lord will strike you with disease, fever, and inflammation; heat waves,^adrought,^bscorching winds,^cand ruined crops. They will pursue you until you die. ²³The sky above will look like bronze, and the ground below will be as hard as iron. ²⁴The Lord will send dust storms and sandstorms on you from the sky until you’re destroyed. 

²⁵The Lord will let your enemies defeat you. You will attack them from one direction but run away from them in seven directions. You will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms in the world. ²⁶Your dead bodies will be food for all the birds and wild animals. There will be no one to scare them away. ²⁷The Lord will strike you with the same boils that plagued the Egyptians. He will strike you with hemorrhoids,^dsores,^eand itchingthat won’t go away. ²⁸The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. ²⁹You will grope in broad daylight as blind people grope in their blindness. You won’t be successful in anything you do.^gAs long as you live, you will be oppressed and robbed with no one to rescue you. 

³⁰You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will have sex with her. You will build a house, but you won’t live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you won’t enjoy the grapes. ³¹Your ox will be butchered as you watch, but you won’t eat any of its meat. You will watch as your donkey is stolen from you, but you’ll never get it back. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue it. ³²You will watch with your own eyes as your sons and daughters are given to another nation. You will strain your eyes looking for them all day long, but there will be nothing you can do. ³³People you never knew will eat what your land and your hard work have produced. As long as you live, you will know nothing but oppression and abuse. ³⁴The things you see will drive you mad. ³⁵The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with severe boils that can’t be cured. The boils will cover your whole body from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 

³⁶The Lord will lead you and the king you choose to a nation that you and your ancestors never knew. There you will worship gods made of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become a thing of horror. All the nations where the Lord will send you will make an example of you and ridicule you. 

³⁸You will plant many crops in your fields, but harvest little because locusts will destroy your crops. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you won’t drink any wine or gather any grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees everywhere in your country but no olive oil to rub on your skin, because the olives will fall off the trees. ⁴¹You will have sons and daughters, but you won’t be able to keep them because they will be taken as prisoners of war. ⁴²Crickets will swarm all over your trees and the crops in your fields. 

⁴³The ⸤standard of living for the⸥ foreigners who live among you will rise higher and higher, while your ⸤standard of living⸥ will sink lower and lower. ⁴⁴They will be able to make loans to you, but you won’t be able to make loans to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail. 

⁴⁵All these curses will come to you. They will pursue you and stay close to you until you’re destroyed, because you didn’t obey the Lord your God or follow his commands and laws, which I’m giving you.