^28:15“But if you ignore²¹ the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force:²²^28:16You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. ^28:17Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. ^28:18Your children²³ will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. ^28:19You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.²⁴

Curses by Disease and Drought

^28:20“The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you²⁵ in everything you undertake²⁶ until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me.²⁷^28:21The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases²⁸ until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. ^28:22He²⁹ will afflict you with weakness,³⁰ fever, inflammation, infection,³¹ sword,³² blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. ^28:23The³³ sky³⁴ above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. ^28:24The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

21 Heb “do not hear the voice of.”
22 Heb “and overtake you” (so , ); , “and overwhelm you.”
23 Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so , , ).
24 See note on the similar expression in v. .
25 Heb “the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke” ( and similar); “disaster, panic, and frustration.”
26 Heb “in all the stretching out of your hand.”
27 For the first person common singular suffix (“me”), the reads either “Lord” (Lucian) or third person masculine singular suffix (“him”; various codices). The ’s more difficult reading probably represents the original text. Heb “the evil of your doings wherein you have forsaken me”; “all because you rejected the Lord.”
28 Heb “will cause pestilence to cling to you.”
29 Heb “The Lord.” See note on “he” in .
30 Or perhaps “consumption” (so , , ). The term is from a verbal root that indicates a weakening of one’s physical strength (cf. “wasting”; , “wasting disease”).
31 Heb “hot fever”; “scorching heat.”
32 Or “drought” (so , , ).
33 The reads “Your.” The reads “Heaven will be to you.”
34 Or “heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.