A Father's Promise to His Children
28 1 Now if you faithfully listen to the voice of your Father, being careful to do all his commandments that I am giving you today, your Father will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
Blessings Chasing You Down
2 And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of your Father: 3 Blessed will you be in the city and blessed will you be in the field. 4 Blessed will be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your livestock the young of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed will you be when you come in and blessed will you be when you go out.
7 Your Father will cause the enemies who rise against you to be struck down before you. They will come out against you one way and flee from you in seven directions. 8 Your Father will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and he will bless you in the land that your Father is giving you. 9 Your Father will establish you as a holy people to himself, as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of your Father and walk in his ways. 10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of our Father, and they will be afraid of you. 11 Your Father will make you overflow with prosperity — in the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your ground — in the land that your Father swore to your fathers to give you. 12 Your Father will open for you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but you yourself will not borrow. 13 Your Father will make you the head and not the tail, and you will go only upward and never downward, if you listen to the commandments of your Father that I am commanding you today, being careful to do them. 14 Do not turn away from any of the words that I am commanding you today, to the right or to the left, by going after other gods to serve them.
When They Turn Away
15 But if you will not listen to the voice of your Father, being careful to do all his commandments and statutes that I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: 1 1 v15 These warnings come from the heart of a Father, not a distant judge — the curses describe the unraveling that follows life lived against the Maker's design, and our Father grieves them even as he names them.
Sorrow Without Shelter
16 Cursed will you be in the city and cursed will you be in the field. 17 Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 Cursed will be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 19 Cursed will you be when you come in and cursed will you be when you go out.
20 Your Father will send upon you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of the evil of your deeds in forsaking me. 21 Your Father will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you from the land that you are entering to possess. 22 Your Father will strike you with wasting disease and fever, with inflammation and burning heat, with drought, blight, and mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish. 23 The heavens over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. 24 Your Father will turn the rain of your land into powder and dust; from the heavens it will come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 Your Father will cause you to be struck down before your enemies. You will go out against them one way and flee from them in seven directions, and you will become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your dead bodies will become food for all the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, and no one will frighten them away. 27 Your Father will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, festering sores, and the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 Your Father will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with confusion of mind. 29 At noon you will grope about like a blind man gropes in the darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways. You will be only oppressed and robbed continually, with no one to save you. 30 You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be torn away from you and not returned. Your flock will be given to your enemies, with no one to save you. 32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people while your eyes look on, longing for them all day long, but you will be powerless to help. 33 A people you do not know will eat the fruit of your ground and all your labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed continually. 34 And you will be driven mad by what your eyes will see. 35 Your Father will strike you on the knees and legs with severe, incurable boils, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36 Your Father will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the peoples where your Father drives you. 38 You will carry much seed out to the field, but harvest little, because the locust will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and tend them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because the worm will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will drop off. 41 You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. 42 The whirring locust will take possession of all your trees and the fruit of your ground. 43 The foreigner who lives among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.
45 All these curses will come upon you, pursuing you and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of your Father, to keep his commandments and statutes that he commanded you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. 47 Because you did not serve your Father with joy and gladness of heart while you had everything in abundance, 48 you will serve the enemies whom your Father sends against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
49 Your Father will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, swooping down like an eagle — a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a fierce-faced nation that will show no respect to the old or mercy to the young. 51 They will devour the offspring of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, no young of your herds or young of your flock, until they have made you perish. 52 They will besiege you within all your towns until your high, fortified walls in which you trust come down throughout your land. They will besiege you within all the towns throughout the land that your Father has given you.
53 Then, in the siege and distress with which your enemy presses you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters your Father has given you. 54 The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who survive, 55 refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children that he is eating, because nothing else is left to him in the siege and distress with which your enemy presses you within all your towns. 56 The most gentle and refined woman among you, so refined she would never so much as set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces, and her own son and daughter, 57 even the afterbirth that comes from between her feet and the children she bears, for she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else, in the siege and distress with which your enemy presses you within your towns.
58 If you are not careful to do all the words of this law written in this book, to fear this glorious and fearsome name — the Father — 59 then your Father will bring extraordinary plagues upon you and your offspring — severe and lasting plagues, severe and lasting sicknesses. 60 He will bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague not written in this book of the law, your Father will bring upon you until you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the stars of the sky will be left few in number, because you did not listen to the voice of your Father. 63 And just as your Father once delighted to do you good and to multiply you, so your Father will delight to bring you to ruin and destroy you, and you will be torn from the land you are entering to possess.
64 Your Father will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone that neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no rest, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There your Father will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. 66 Your life will hang in the balance before you. Night and day you will be terrified, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!" — because of the dread that fills your heart and the sights your eyes will see. 68 Your Father will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way I said you would never see again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.