A Father's Promise to His Children
28 1 If you faithfully listen to the voice of your Father, being careful to do all his commandments I give you today, your Father will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 All these blessings will come on 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, the fruit of your livestock — the young of your herds and flocks. 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 strike down before you the enemies who rise against you. They will come at you one way and flee from you seven ways. 8 Your Father will command the blessing on you in your barns and everything you put your hand to, and bless you in the land 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 your Father's commands 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 fear you. 11 Your Father will make you overflow with prosperity — the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your livestock, the fruit of your ground — in the land your Father swore to your fathers to give you. 12 Your Father will open for you his good treasury, the heavens, to give your land's rain in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but not borrow. 13 Your Father will make you the head, not the tail, always rising, never falling, if you listen to the commandments of your Father I command you today, carefully doing them. 14 Do not turn from any of the words I command you today, right or left, to follow other gods and serve them.
When They Turn Away
15 But if you will not listen to your Father's voice, carefully doing all his commandments and statutes I am commanding you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: a a 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. 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 be the fruit of your womb and 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 on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, for the evil of your deeds in abandoning me. 21 Your Father will make the plague cling to you until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 Your Father will strike you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, burning heat, drought, blight, and mildew; 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 your land's rain to powder and dust; it will fall from the heavens on you until you are destroyed. 25 Your Father will have you struck down before your enemies. You will go out one way against them but flee seven ways, and become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the sky and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away. 27 Your Father will strike you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, festering sores, and the itch, none of which can be healed. 28 Your Father will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with confusion of mind. 29 At noon you will grope like the blind in the dark, and not succeed 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 not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but not enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you won't eat from it. Your donkey will be seized from you and not returned. Your flock will be given to your enemies, with no one to rescue you. 32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people as your eyes watch, longing for them all day, but your hand will be powerless. 33 Strangers will eat your land's produce and all your labor; you will only be oppressed and crushed continually. 34 And you will be driven mad by what your eyes will see. 35 Your Father will strike you with severe, incurable boils on your knees and legs, 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 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 peoples where your Father drives you. 38 You will carry much seed to the field but harvest little, for the locust will consume it. 39 You'll plant and tend vineyards, but not drink the wine or gather grapes—the worm will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory, but never anoint yourself with oil, because your olives drop off. 41 You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, for 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 among you will rise higher and higher above you; you sink lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head; you the tail.
45 All these curses will come on you, pursuing 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 a glad heart when you had everything in abundance, 48 you will serve the enemies your Father sends against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and dire poverty. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he destroys 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 your livestock's offspring and your ground's fruit until you are destroyed, leaving you no grain, new wine, or oil, no young of your herds or young of your flocks, until they make you perish. 52 They will besiege you in all your towns until your high, fortified walls you trust in come down throughout your land — besiege you in every town throughout the land your Father has given you. 53 Then, in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters your Father gave you. 54 The gentlest, most refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and his surviving children, 55 refusing to share with any of them his children's flesh that he is eating, since nothing else is left him in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you within all your towns. 56 The gentlest, most refined woman among you, so refined she'd never set foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces, and her own son and daughter, 57 even the afterbirth from between her feet and the children she bears, for she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else, during the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you within your towns. 58 If you are not careful to obey all the words of this law written in this book, to fear this glorious and awesome name — the Father 59 —then your Father will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your offspring — severe and lasting plagues, severe and lasting sicknesses. 60 He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 Every sickness and plague not written in this book of the law, your Father will also bring on you until you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the sky's stars will be left few, because you did not listen to your Father's voice. 63 Just as your Father delighted to do you good and multiply you, so your Father will delight 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, unknown to you and your fathers. 65 Among those nations you will find no rest, no resting place for your foot. There your Father will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you. Night and day you will dread, never sure of your life. 67 In the morning you'll say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!" — from the dread filling 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 to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
