^28:25“The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror³⁵ to all the kingdoms of the earth. ^28:26Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. ^28:27The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. ^28:28The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.³⁶^28:29You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do;³⁷ you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you. ^28:30You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape³⁸ her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it. ^28:31Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you. ^28:32Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it.³⁹^28:33As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives. ^28:34You will go insane from seeing all this. ^28:35The Lord will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils—from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. ^28:36The Lord will force you and your king⁴⁰ whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there. ^28:37You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.

The Curse of Reversed Status

^28:38“You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. ^28:39You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. ^28:40You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe.⁴¹^28:41You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

35 The meaningless reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zéva’ah, “terror”).
36 Heb “heart” (so , ).
37 Heb “you will not cause your ways to prosper.”
38 For reading שָׁגַל (shagal, “ravish; violate”), the , , and presume the less violent שָׁכַב (shakhav, “lie with”). The unexpected counterpart to betrothal here favors the originality of the .
39 Heb “and there will be no power in your hand”; “there will be nothing you can do.”
40 The reads the plural “kings.”
41 Heb “your olives will drop off” (נָשַׁל, nashal), referring to the olives dropping off before they ripen.