Deuteronomy 28:15–68

Curses for Disobedience

¹⁵However, if you do not obey^e the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today,^f all these curses will come on you and overtake you:^g

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

¹⁷Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.ⁱ

¹⁸The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.^j

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

²⁰The Lord will send on you curses,^l confusion and rebuke^m in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruinⁿ because of the evil^o you have done in forsaking him.^{a 21}The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.^{p 22}The Lord will strike you with wasting disease,^q with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought,^r with blight^s and mildew, which will plague^t you until you perish.^{u 23}The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.^{v 24}The Lord will turn the rain^w of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

²⁵The Lord will cause you to be defeated^x before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven,^y and you will become a thing of horror^z to all the kingdoms on earth.^{a 26}Your carcasses will be food for all the birds^b and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away.^{c 27}The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt^d and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. ²⁸The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. ²⁹At midday you will grope^e about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue^f you.

³⁰You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her.^g You will build a house, but you will not live in it.^h You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.^{i 31}Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. ³²Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation,^j and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. ³³A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression^k all your days.^{l 34}The sights you see will drive you mad.^{m 35}The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boilsⁿ that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.^o

³⁶The Lord will drive you and the king^p you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors.^q There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.^{r 37}You will become a thing of horror,^s a byword^t and an object of ridicule^u among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.^v

³⁸You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little,^w because locusts^x will devour^y it. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine^z or gather the grapes, because worms will eat^a them.^{b 40}You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.^{c 41}You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity.^{d 42}Swarms of locusts^e will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

⁴³The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.^{f 44}They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them.^g They will be the head, but you will be the tail.^h

⁴⁵All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake youⁱ until you are destroyed,^j because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. ⁴⁶They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.^{k 47}Because you did not serve^l the Lord your God joyfully and gladly^m in the time of prosperity, ⁴⁸therefore in hunger and thirst,ⁿ in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke^o on your neck^p until he has destroyed you.

⁴⁹The Lord will bring a nation against you^q from far away, from the ends of the earth,^r like an eagle^s swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,^{t 50}a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old^u or pity for the young. ⁵¹They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine^v or olive oil,^w nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.^{x 52}They will lay siege^y to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.^z

⁵³Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.^{a 54}Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, ⁵⁵and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.^{b 56}The most gentle and sensitive^c woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter^{d 57}the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them^e secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.

⁵⁸If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law,^f which are written in this book, and do not revere^g this glorious and awesome name^h—the Lord your God—⁵⁹the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. ⁶⁰He will bring on you all the diseases of Egyptⁱ that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law,^j until you are destroyed.^{k 62}You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky^l will be left but few^m in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. ⁶³Just as it pleasedⁿ the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please^o him to ruin and destroy you.^p You will be uprooted^q from the land you are entering to possess.

⁶⁴Then the Lord will scatter^r you among all nations,^s from one end of the earth to the other.^t There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.^{u 65}Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place^v for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes^w weary with longing, and a despairing heart.^{x 66}You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. ⁶⁷In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.^{y 68}The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again.^z There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.