¹⁵But suppose you don’t obey the Lord your God. And you aren’t careful to follow all of his commands and rules I’m giving you today. Then he will send curses on you. They’ll catch up with you. Here are those curses.

¹⁶You will be cursed in the cities. You will be cursed out in the country.

¹⁷Your baskets and bread pans will be cursed.

¹⁸Your children will be cursed. Your crops will be cursed. Your calves and lambs will be cursed.

¹⁹You will be cursed no matter where you go.

²⁰The Lord will send curses on you. You won’t know what’s going on. In everything you do, he will be angry with you. You will be destroyed suddenly and completely. That will happen because you did an evil thing when you deserted the Lord.

²¹He will send all kinds of sicknesses on you. He’ll send them until he has destroyed you. He’ll remove you from the land you are entering to take as your own. ²²The Lord will make you sick and very weak. He will strike you with fever and swelling. He’ll send burning heat. There won’t be any rain. The hot winds will completely dry up your crops. All of those things will happen until you die.

²³The sky above you will be like bronze. The ground beneath you will be like 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 help your enemies win the battle over you. You will come at them from one direction. But you will run away from them in seven directions. You will look so bad that all of the kingdoms on earth will be completely shocked when they see you. ²⁶Birds and wild animals will eat up your dead bodies. There won’t be anyone left to scare them away.

²⁷The Lord will send boils on you, just like the ones he sent on the Egyptians. You will have growths in your bodies and boils on your skin. You will itch all over. No one will be able to heal you.

²⁸The Lord will make you lose your mind. He will make you blind. You won’t know what’s going on. ²⁹Even at noon you will have to feel your way around like a blind person in the dark. You won’t have success in anything you do. Day after day you will be robbed and beaten down. No one will be able to save you.

³⁰You and a woman will promise to get married to each other. But another man will take her and rape her. You will build a house. But you won’t live in it. You will plant a vineyard. But you won’t eat a single grape from it. ³¹Your ox will be killed right in front of your eyes. But you won’t eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you by force. And you will never get it back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. No one will be able to save them.

³²Your children will be given to another nation. Day after day you will watch for them to come back. But you will only wear out your eyes. You won’t be able to help your children.

³³A nation you don’t know anything about will eat what you work to produce on your land. You will be completely beaten down as long as you live. ³⁴The things you see will make you lose your mind. ³⁵The Lord will send painful boils on your knees and legs. No one will be able to heal them. They will cover you from head to toe.

³⁶The Lord will drive you out of the land. And he will drive out the king you place over you. All of you will go to a nation you and your people long ago didn’t know anything about. There you will worship other gods. They will be made out of wood and stone. ³⁷You will look very bad to all of the nations where the Lord sends you. They will be completely shocked when they see you. They will laugh at you and make fun of you.

³⁸You will plant many seeds in your field. But you will gather very little food. Locusts will eat it up. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and take care of them. But you won’t drink the wine. You won’t gather the grapes. Worms will eat them up. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees through your whole country. But you won’t use the oil. The olives will drop off the trees. ⁴¹You will have children. But you won’t be able to keep them. They’ll be taken away as prisoners. ⁴²Large numbers of locusts will eat up the leaves on all of your trees. They will also eat up the crops on your land.

⁴³Outsiders who live among you will become your leaders. They will rise higher and higher. But you will sink lower and lower. ⁴⁴They will lend money to you. But you won’t be able to lend money to them. They will be the leaders. But you will be the followers.

⁴⁵The Lord your God will send all of those curses on you. They will follow you everywhere. They’ll catch up with you. You will be under the Lord’s curse until you are destroyed. That’s because you didn’t obey him. You didn’t keep the commands and rules he gave you.

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