Deuteronomy 28:15–45

Curses for Disobeying

¹⁵But if you do not obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands and laws I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and stay:

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

¹⁷Your basket and your kitchen will be cursed.

¹⁸Your children will be cursed, as well as your crops; the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks will be cursed.

¹⁹You will be cursed when you go in and when you go out.

²⁰The Lord will send you curses, confusion, and punishment in everything you do. You will be destroyed and suddenly ruined because you did wrong when you left him. ²¹The Lord will give you terrible diseases and destroy you from the land you are going to take. ²²The Lord will punish you with disease, fever, swelling, heat, lack of rain, plant diseases, and mildew until you die. ²³The sky above will be like bronze, and the ground below will be like iron. ^{n 24}The Lord will turn the rain into dust and sand, which will fall from the skies until you are destroyed.

²⁵The Lord will help your enemies defeat you. You will attack them from one direction, but you will run from them in seven directions. And you will become a thing of horror among all the kingdoms on earth. ²⁶Your dead bodies will be food for all the birds and wild animals, and there will be no one to scare them away. ²⁷The Lord will punish you with boils like those the Egyptians had. You will have bad growths, sores, and itches that can’t be cured. ²⁸The Lord will give you madness, blindness, and a confused mind. ²⁹You will have to feel around in the daylight like a blind person. You will fail in everything you do. People will hurt you and steal from you every day, and no one will save you.

³⁰You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will force her to have sexual relations with him. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not get its grapes. ³¹Your ox will be killed before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you, and it will not be brought back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you. ³²Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will grow tired looking for them every day, but there will be nothing you can do. ³³People you don’t know will eat the crops your land and hard work have produced. You will be mistreated and abused all your life. ³⁴The things you see will cause you to go mad. ³⁵The Lord will give you sore boils on your knees and legs that cannot be cured, and they will go from the soles of your feet to the tops of your heads.

³⁶The Lord will send you and your king away to a nation neither you nor your ancestors know, where you will serve other gods made of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become a hated thing to the nations where the Lord sends you; they will laugh at you and make fun of you.

³⁸You will plant much seed in your field, but your harvest will be small, because locusts will eat the crop. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and work hard in them, but you will not pick the grapes or drink the wine, because the worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees in all your land, but you will not get any olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees. ⁴¹You will have sons and daughters, but you will not be able to keep them, because they will be taken captive. ⁴²Locusts will destroy all your trees and crops.

⁴³The foreigners who live among you will get stronger and stronger, and you will get weaker and weaker. ⁴⁴Foreigners will lend money to you, but you will not be able to lend to them. They will be like the head, and you will be like the tail.

⁴⁵All these curses will come upon you. They will chase you and catch you and destroy you, because you did not obey the Lord your God and keep the commands and laws he gave you.