28:1 “Now it shall be, if you diligently ①obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I am commanding you today, that the LORD your God will put you high above all the nations of the earth.
▷ ①Lit listen to the voice of
28:2 And all these blessings will come to you and reach you if you ①obey the LORD your God:
▷ ①Lit listen to the voice of
28:3 “Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be in the ①country.
▷ ①Lit field
28:4 “Blessed will be the ①children of your womb, the ②produce of your ground, and the ③offspring of your animals: the newborn of your herd and the young of your flock.
▷ ①Lit fruit ②Lit fruit ③Lit fruit
28:5 “Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.
28:6 “Blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out.
28:7 “The LORD will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be ①defeated by you; they will go out against you one way and will flee at your presence seven ways.
▷ ①Lit struck
28:8 The LORD will command the blessing for you in your ①barns and in everything that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
▷ ①Or storehouses
28:9 The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.
28:10 So all the peoples of the earth will see that ①you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you.
▷ ①Lit the name of the LORD is called upon you
28:11 And the LORD will give you more than enough prosperity, in the ①children of your womb, in the ②offspring of your livestock, and in the ③produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
▷ ①Lit fruit ②Lit fruit ③Lit fruit
28:12 The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless every work of your hand; and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.
28:13 And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will only be above, and not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God which I am commanding you today, to ①follow them carefully,
▷ ①Lit be careful and to perform
28:14 and do not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or the left, to pursue other gods to serve them.
28:15 “But it shall come about, if you do not ①obey the LORD your God, to be careful to ②follow all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
▷ ①Lit listen to the voice of ②Lit perform
28:16 “Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the ①country.
▷ ①Lit field
28:17 “Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.
28:18 “Cursed will be the ①children of your womb, the ②produce of your ground, the newborn of your herd, and the offspring of your flock.
▷ ①Lit fruit ②Lit fruit
28:19 “Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.
28:20 “The LORD will send against you curses, panic, and rebuke, in ①everything you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have abandoned Me.
▷ ①Lit every putting forth of your hand which you do
28:21 The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has eliminated you from the land where you are entering to take possession of it.
28:22 The LORD will strike you with consumption, inflammation, fever, feverish heat, and with ①the sword, with blight, and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish.
▷ ①Another reading is drought
28:23 ①The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron.
▷ ①Lit Your
28:24 The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
28:25 “The LORD will cause you to be defeated by your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways from their presence, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
28:26 Your dead bodies will ①serve as food for all birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
▷ ①Lit be for
28:27 “The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, the festering rash, and with scabies, from which you cannot be healed.
28:28 The LORD will strike you with insanity, blindness, and with confusion of ①mind;
▷ ①Lit heart
28:29 and you will be groping about at noon, just as a person who is blind gropes in the darkness, and you will not be successful in your ways; but you will only be ①oppressed and robbed all the time, with no one to save you.
▷ ①Or exploited
28:30 You will ①betroth a woman, but another man will ②violate her; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not make use of its fruit.
▷ ①A betrothed couple was considered legally married, but did not yet live together ②Or be intimate with
28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey will be snatched away from you, and will not ①be restored to you; your ②sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.
▷ ①Lit return to ②Or flock
28:32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them constantly; but there will be nothing ①you can do.
▷ ①Lit to the power of your hand
28:33 A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your ground and every product of your labor, and you will never be anything but oppressed and mistreated continually.
28:34 You will also be driven insane by the sight of ①what you see.
▷ ①Lit your eyes which you
28:35 The LORD will strike you on the knees and thighs with severe boils from which you cannot be healed, and strike you from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
28:36 The LORD will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, made of wood and stone.
28:37 And you will become an object of horror, a song of mockery, and an object of taunting among all the peoples where the LORD drives you.
28:38 “You will bring out a great amount of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locust will devour it.
28:39 You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor bring in the harvest, because the worm will eat it.
28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will drop off prematurely.
28:41 You will father sons and daughters but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.
28:42 The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground.
28:43 The stranger who is among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower.
28:44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail.
28:45 “So all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not ①obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.
▷ ①Lit listen to the voice of
28:46 And they will become a sign and a wonder ①against you and your ②descendants forever.
▷ ①Or on ②Lit seed
28:47 “Since you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a cheerful heart, in gratitude for the abundance of all things,
28:48 you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and devoid of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
28:49 “The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down; a nation whose language you will not understand,
28:50 a nation ①with a defiant attitude, who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.
▷ ①Lit defiant-faced
28:51 Furthermore, it will eat the ①offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed; a nation that will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the newborn of your cattle or the young of your flock, until they have eliminated you.
▷ ①Lit fruit
28:52 And it will besiege you in all your ①towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it will besiege you in all your ②towns throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you.
▷ ①Lit gates ②Lit gates
28:53 Then you will eat the ①offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will ②oppress you.
▷ ①Lit fruit of your womb ②Or torment
28:54 The man who is ①refined and very delicate among you ②will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife ③he cherishes, and toward the rest of his children who are left,
▷ ①Or spoiled and pampered ②Lit his eye will be evil toward ③Lit of his breast
28:55 so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will ①oppress you in all your ②towns.
▷ ①Or torment ②Lit gates
28:56 The ①refined and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and tenderness, ②will be hostile toward the husband ③she cherishes and toward her son and daughter,
▷ ①Or spoiled and pampered ②Lit her eye shall be evil toward ③Lit of her breast
28:57 and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her ①legs, and toward her children to whom she gives birth, because she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the hardship with which your enemy will ②oppress you in your ③towns.
▷ ①Lit feet ②Or torment ③Lit gates
28:58 “If you are not careful to ①follow all the words of this Law that are written in this book, to ②fear this honored and awesome name, ③the LORD your God,
▷ ①Lit perform ②Or revere ③Heb YHWH
28:59 then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and ①your descendants, ②severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses.
▷ ①Lit plagues on your seed ②Lit great
28:60 And He will bring back on you every disease of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.
28:61 Also every sickness and every plague, which are not written in the book of this Law, the LORD will bring on you until you are destroyed.
28:62 Then you will be left few in ①number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not ②obey the LORD your God.
▷ ①Lit people ②Lit listen to the voice of
28:63 And it will come about that, just as the LORD rejoiced over you to be good to you, and make you numerous, so will the LORD rejoice over you to wipe you out and destroy you; and you will be torn away from the land which you are entering to possess.
28:64 Furthermore, the LORD will scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to ①the other; and there you will serve other gods, made of wood and stone, which you and your fathers have not known.
▷ ①Lit the end of the earth
28:65 Among those nations you will find no peace, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.
28:66 So your lives will be ①hanging in doubt before you; and you will be terrified night and day, and have no assurance of your life.
▷ ①Lit be hung for you in front
28:67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And at evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the terror of your heart which you fear, and the sight of your eyes which you will see.
28:68 And the LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I said to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”