Deuteronomy 28-29

English Standard Version

Blessings for Obedience

28 “And ^(A)if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you ^(B)high above all the nations of the earth. ²And all these blessings shall come upon you and ^(C)overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. ³Blessed shall you be in the city, and ^(D)blessed shall you be in the field. ⁴Blessed shall be ^(E)the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. ⁵Blessed shall be your basket and your ^(F)kneading bowl. ⁶Blessed shall you be ^(G)when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

⁷“The Lord ^(H)will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. ⁸The Lord ^(I)will command the blessing on you in your barns and ^(J)in all that you undertake. ^(K)And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ⁹^(L)The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. ¹⁰And ^(M)all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are ^(N)called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be ^(O)afraid of you. ¹¹And ^(P)the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in ^(Q)the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. ¹²The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, ^(R)to give the rain to your land in its season and ^(S)to bless all the work of your hands. And ^(T)you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. ¹³And the Lord will make you ^(U)the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, ¹⁴^(V)and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Curses for Disobedience

¹⁵“But ^(W)if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and ^(X)overtake you. ¹⁶Cursed shall you be ^(Y)in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. ¹⁷Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. ¹⁸Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. ¹⁹Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

²⁰“The Lord ^(Z)will send on you curses, confusion, and ^(AA)frustration in all that you undertake to do, ^(AB)until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. ²¹The Lord will make ^(AC)the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. ²²^(AD)The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought^[a] and with ^(AE)blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. ²³And ^(AF)the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. ²⁴The Lord will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

²⁵^(AG)“The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you ^(AH)shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶And ^(AI)your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and ^(AJ)there shall be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷The Lord will strike you ^(AK)with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and ^(AL)scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. ²⁸The Lord will strike you with ^(AM)madness and blindness and confusion of mind, ²⁹and you shall ^(AN)grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.^[b] And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you. ³⁰^(AO)You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. ^(AP)You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. ^(AQ)You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit. ³¹Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat any of it. Your donkey shall be seized before your face, but shall not be restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies, but there shall be no one to help you. ³²^(AR)Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, ^(AS)but you shall be helpless. ³³A nation that you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, ³⁴so that you are driven mad ^(AT)by the sights that your eyes see. ³⁵The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs ^(AU)with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

³⁶“The Lord will ^(AV)bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you ^(AW)nor your fathers have known. And ^(AX)there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷And you shall become ^(AY)a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away. ³⁸^(AZ)You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for ^(BA)the locust shall consume it. ³⁹^(BB)You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. ⁴⁰You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you ^(BC)shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for ^(BD)they shall go into captivity. ⁴²^(BE)The cricket^[c] shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground. ⁴³^(BF)The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴^(BG)He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. ^(BH)He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

⁴⁵^(BI)“All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. ⁴⁶They shall be ^(BJ)a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. ⁴⁷^(BK)Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, ⁴⁸therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he ^(BL)will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹^(BM)The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, ^(BN)swooping down like the eagle, a nation ^(BO)whose language you do not understand, ⁵⁰a hard-faced nation ^(BP)who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. ⁵¹It shall ^(BQ)eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

⁵²“They shall ^(BR)besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. ⁵³And ^(BS)you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, ^(BT)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. ⁵⁴The man who is the most tender and refined among you will ^(BU)begrudge food to his brother, to ^(BV)the wife he embraces,^[d] and to the last of the children whom he has left, ⁵⁵so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, ^(BW)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. ⁵⁶^(BX)The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces,^[e] to her son and to her daughter, ⁵⁷her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, ^(BY)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.

⁵⁸“If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, ^(BZ)the Lord your God, ⁵⁹then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. ⁶⁰And he will bring upon you again all ^(CA)the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. ⁶²Whereas ^(CB)you were as numerous ^(CC)as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. ⁶³And as the Lord ^(CD)took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will ^(CE)take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

⁶⁴“And the Lord ^(CF)will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and ^(CG)there you shall serve other gods ^(CH)of wood and stone, ^(CI)which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵And ^(CJ)among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but ^(CK)the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and ^(CL)a languishing soul. ⁶⁶Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷^(CM)In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and ^(CN)the sights that your eyes shall see. ⁶⁸And the Lord ^(CO)will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that ^(CP)you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

The Covenant Renewed in Moab

29 ^[f] These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel ^(CQ)in the land of Moab, besides ^(CR)the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.

²^[g] And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: ^(CS)“You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, ³the great ^(CT)trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. ⁴But to this day ^(CU)the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. ⁵^(CV)I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. ⁶^(CW)You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. ⁷And when you came to this place, ^(CX)Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, but we defeated them. ⁸We took their land and ^(CY)gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites. ⁹^(CZ)Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper^[h] in all that you do.

¹⁰“You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God: the heads of your tribes,^[i] your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, ¹¹your little ones, your wives, and the ^(DA)sojourner who is in your camp, from ^(DB)the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, ¹²so that you may enter into the ^(DC)sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, ¹³that he may ^(DD)establish you today as his people, and that ^(DE)he may be your God, as he promised you, and ^(DF)as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ¹⁴It is not with you alone ^(DG)that I am making this sworn covenant, ¹⁵but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, ^(DH)and with whoever is not here with us today.

¹⁶“You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. ¹⁷And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. ¹⁸Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you ^(DI)a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, ¹⁹one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. ²⁰The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather ^(DJ)the anger of the Lord and ^(DK)his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord ^(DL)will blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. ²²And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, ^(DM)will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick— ²³the whole land burned out with brimstone and ^(DN)salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, ^(DO)an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, ^(DP)Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— ²⁴all the nations ^(DQ)will say, ^(DR)‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ ²⁵Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, ²⁶and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. ²⁷Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, ^(DS)bringing upon it all the curses written in this book, ²⁸and the Lord ^(DT)uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and ^(DU)cast them into another land, as they are this day.’

²⁹“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.