Deuteronomy 28
1 “If you do what Yahweh our God tells you to do and faithfully obey everything that I am today commanding you to do, he will cause you to become greater than any other nation on the earth.
And it shall come to pass, if you will indeed hear the voice of the Lord your God, to observe and do all these commands, which I charge you this day, that the Lord your God shall set you on high above all the nations of the earth;
2 If you obey Yahweh, this is what he will do to bless you:
and all these blessings shall come upon you, and shall find you. If you will indeed hear the voice of the Lord your God,
3 He will bless everything that you do when you are in the cities and he will bless everything that you do when you are [working] in the fields.
blessed [shall] you [be] in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
4 He will bless you by giving you many children [IDM] and by giving you abundant crops, and plenty of cattle and sheep.
Blessed shall be the offspring of your body, and the fruits of your land, and the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep.
5 He will bless you by causing you to have good harvests with plenty of grain [MTY] to make bread.
Blessed shall be your barns, and your stores.
6 He will bless you [everywhere]—when you go out [of your houses] and when you come into [your houses].
Blessed shall you be in your coming in, and blessed shall you be in your going out.
7 Yahweh will enable you to defeat [the armies of] your enemies; they will attack you from one direction, but they will run away from you in seven/many directions.
The Lord deliver your enemies that withstand you utterly broken before your face: they shall come out against you one way, and they shall flee seven ways from before you.
8 Yahweh will bless you [by filling] your barns [with grain], and he will bless all the work that you do; he will bless you in the land that he is giving to you.
The Lord send upon you his blessing in your barns, and on all on which you shall put your hand, in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
9 “If you obey all the commandments that Yahweh our God [has given to you] and if you conduct your lives as he wants you to do, you will continue to be his people, which is what he promised.
The Lord raise you up for himself a holy people, as he sware to your fathers; if you will hear the voice of the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways.
10 “When all the people-groups on the earth will realize that you belong to [MTY] Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.
And all the nations of the earth shall see you, that the name of the Lord is called upon you, and they shall stand in awe of you.
11 “And Yahweh will cause you to prosper very much. He will give you many children [IDM], many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he vowed to our ancestors that he would give to you.
And the Lord your God shall multiply you for good in the offspring of your body, and in the offspring of your cattle, and in the fruits of your land, on your land which the Lord sware to your fathers to give to you.
12 “When rain is needed, Yahweh will send it from where he stores it in the sky, and he will bless all your work, with the result that you [will be able to] lend money to many other nations, but you will not need to borrow [money from them].
May the Lord open to you his good treasure, the heaven, to give rain to your land in season: may he bless all the works of your hands: so shall you lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.
13 If you faithfully obey all of the commands of Yahweh our God that I am giving you today, Yahweh will cause your nation to be a leader among the nations, not inferior to them; you will always be prosperous and never be needy/poor [IDM].
The Lord your God make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall then be above and you shall not be below, if you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, in all things that I charge you this day to observe.
14 [Yahweh will do all these things for you] if you do not turn away from [obeying] what I am commanding you today, and if you never worship or serve other gods.
You shall not turn aside from any of the commandments, which I charge you this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
15 But if you do not do what Yahweh our God is telling you to do, and if you do not faithfully obey all his rules and regulations that I am giving to you today, this is what he will do to curse you:
But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe all his commandments, as many as I charge you this day, then all these curses shall come on you, and overtake you.
16 He will curse you when you are in the cities and he will curse you when you are [working] in the fields.
Cursed [shall] you [be] in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
17 He will curse you by not allowing you to have good harvests with plenty of grain [MTY] to make bread.
Cursed shall be your barns and your stores.
18 He will curse you by giving you only a few children [IDM], by causing you to have poor crops, and by not enabling you to have many cattle and sheep.
Cursed shall be the offspring of your body, and the fruits of your land, the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep.
19 He will curse you [everywhere]—when you go out [of your houses] and when you come into [your houses].
Cursed shall you be in your coming in, and cursed shall you be in your going out.
20 If you do evil things and reject Yahweh, he will curse you by causing you to (be confused/not know what to do), and to be frustrated in everything that you do, until [your enemies] quickly and completely destroy you {you will be quickly and completely destroyed}.
The Lord send upon you lack, and famine, and consumption of all things on which you shall put your hand, until he shall have utterly destroyed you, and until he shall have consumed you quickly because of your evil devices, because you have forsaken me.
21 Yahweh will cause you to experience terrible diseases, until not one of you remains alive in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.
The Lord cause the pestilence to cleave to you, until he shall have consumed you off the land into which you go to inherit it.
22 Yahweh will strike/afflict you with diseases that shrivel your bodies, with fever, with inflammation/swelling. It will be extremely hot, and it will not rain. There will be scorching winds, and [Yahweh will cause] your crops to rot. All these things will strike you until you die.
The Lord strike you with distress, and fever, and cold, and inflammation, and blighting, and paleness, and they shall pursue you until they have destroyed you.
23 There will be no rain [MET], [with the result that] the ground will be [as hard as] iron [MET].
And you shall have over your head a sky of brass, and the earth under you shall be iron.
24 Instead of sending rain, Yahweh will send strong winds to blow sand and dust over your land, until your land is ruined.
The Lord your God make the rain of your land dust; and dust shall come down from heaven, until it shall have destroyed you, and until it shall have quickly consumed you.
25 Yahweh will enable your enemies to defeat you; your soldiers will attack your enemies from one direction, but they will run away from your enemies in seven/many directions, and when the people of other nations see what is happening to you, they will say that it is horrible.
The Lord give you up for slaughter before your enemies: you shall go out against them one way, and flee from their face seven ways; and you shall be a dispersion in all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 [You will die], and birds and wild animals will come and eat your corpses, and there will not be anyone to scare/shoo them away.
And your dead men shall be food to the birds of the sky, and to the beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to scare them away.
27 Yahweh will cause you to have boils on your skin, like he caused the people of Egypt to have [many years ago]. He will cause you to have tumors, open sores, and your skin will itch, and there will be nothing that will cure those diseases.
The Lord strike you with the botch of Egypt in the seat, and with a malignant scab, and itch, so that you can not be healed.
28 Yahweh will cause [some of] you to become insane; he will cause some of you to become blind, and he will cause [some of] your minds to become confused.
The Lord strike you with insanity, and blindness, and astonishment of mind.
29 [Because you will not be able to see where you are going], at midday you will (grope/feel your way) around with your hands, like people do in the darkness. You will continually be oppressed and robbed, and no one will help you.
And you shall grope at mid-day, as a blind man would grope in the darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways; and then you shall be unjustly treated, and plundered continually, and there shall be no helper.
30 Some of you men will be engaged/promised to marry a young woman, but someone else will rape her. You will build houses, but you will never live in them. You will plant grapevines, but you will not eat the grapes; [someone else will eat them].
you shall take a wife, and another man shall have her; you shall build a house, and you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not gather the grapes of it.
31 Your enemies will butcher your cattle while you watch them, and you will not get any of the meat to eat. They will drag away your donkeys while you watch them do it, and they will not give them back to you. They will take away your sheep; and no one will help you [rescue them].
Your calf [shall be] slain before you, and you shall not eat of it; your ass shall be violently taken away from you, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no helper.
32 While you watch, your sons and daughters will be given to foreigners to become their slaves. Every day you will very sadly watch for your children to return, but (you will watch in vain/they will never return).
Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another nation, and your eyes wasting away shall look for them: your hand shall have no strength.
33 People from a foreign nation will take all the crops that you worked hard to produce, and they will constantly treat you harshly and cruelly [DOU].
A nation which you know not shall eat the produce of your land, and all your labors; and you shall be injured and crushed always.
34 The result will be that all these terrible things that you see/experience will cause you to become insane.
And you shall be distracted, because of the sights of your eyes which you shall see.
35 Yahweh will cause your legs [to be covered with] painful boils that cannot be healed, and you will have boils from the bottoms of your feet to the tops of your heads.
The Lord strike you with an evil sore, on the knees and the legs, so that you shall not be able to be healed from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36 Yahweh will cause your king and the rest of you to be taken to another country, to a place in which you and your ancestors have never lived before, and there you will worship and serve gods that are made of wood or stone.
The Lord carry away you and your princes, whom you shall set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers know; and you shall there serve other gods, wood and stone.
37 When the people-groups in nearby countries see what has happened to you, they will be shocked/horrified; they will make fun [DOU] of you.
An you shall be there for a wonder, and a parable, and a tale, among all the nations, to which the Lord your God shall carry you away.
38 You will plant plenty of seeds in your fields, but you will reap only a small harvest, because locusts will eat the crops.
You shall carry forth much seed into the field, and you shall bring in little, because the locust shall devour it.
39 You will plant grapevines and take care of them, but you will not pick any grapes to make wine, because worms will eat the vines.
You shall plant a vineyard, and dress it, and shall not drink the wine, neither shall you delight yourself with it, because the worm shall devour it.
40 Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will not get any olive oil to rub on your skin because the olives will drop [on the ground before they are ripe].
You shall have olive trees in all your borders, and you shall not anoint you with oil, because your olive shall utterly cast [its fruit].
41 You will have sons and daughters, but they will not stay with you, because they will be captured and taken away.
You shall beget sons and daughters, and they shall not be [your], for they shall depart into captivity.
42 Swarms of locusts/insects will eat your crops and [the leaves of] all your trees.
All your trees and the fruits of your land shall the blight consume.
43 Foreigners who live in your land will become more and more [powerful], and you will become less and less [powerful].
The stranger that is within you shall get up very high, and you shall come down very low.
44 They will [have money to] lend to you, but you will not [have any money to] lend to them. They will be superior [IDM] to you, and you will be inferior to them [IDM].
He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
45 “You will experience all these disasters, and you will continue to experience them you until you are destroyed, if you do not do what Yahweh your God told you to do, and do not obey all the rules and regulations that he gave to you.
And all these curses shall come upon you, and shall pursue you, and shall overtake you, until he shall have consumed you, and until he shall have destroyed you; because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commands, and his ordinances which he has commanded you.
46 “These disasters will warn [DOU] you and your descendants forever [about what happens to groups who disobey Yahweh].
And [these things] shall be signs in you, and wonders among your seed for ever;
47 “Because Yahweh blessed you abundantly in many ways, you should have served him very joyfully [DOU], but you did not do that.
because you did not serve the Lord your God with gladness and a good heart, because of the abundance of all things.
48 “Therefore, you will work for the enemies whom Yahweh will send to attack you. You will be hungry and thirsty; you will not have clothes to wear; and you will lack everything else that you need. And Yahweh will cause you to become slaves [MET] and work hard until he gets rid of you.
And you shall serve your enemies, which the Lord will send forth against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and you shall wear upon your neck a yoke of iron until he shall have destroyed you.
49 “Yahweh will cause an army from very far away [HYP] to attack you, whose soldiers speak a language that you do not know/understand. They will swoop down on you [quickly] like an eagle [SIM] attacks its prey.
The Lord shall bring upon you a nation from the extremity of the earth, like the swift flying of an eagle, a nation whose voice you shall not understand;
50 They will be fierce looking. They will not act mercifully toward anyone, not even young children and old people.
a nation bold in countenance, which shall not respect the person of the aged and shall not pity the young.
51 They will [kill and] eat your livestock, and they will eat your crops, and you will (starve/die because you do not have anything to eat). They will not leave for you any grain or wine or [olive] oil or cattle or sheep; and you will all die [from hunger].
And it shall eat up the young of your cattle, and the fruits of your land, so as not to leave to you corn, wine, oil, the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep, until it shall have destroyed you;
52 Your enemies will surround your towns throughout the land that Yahweh your God is about to give to you, and they will break down the high and strong walls [around your towns], walls which you trusted/thought would protect you.
and have utterly crushed you in your cities, until the high and strong walls be destroyed, in which you trust, in all your land; and it shall afflict you in your cities, which he has given to you.
53 “When your enemies are surrounding [your towns], you will be extremely hungry, with the result that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters that Yahweh your God has given to you.
And you shall eat the fruit of your body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, all that he has given you, in your straitness and your affliction, with which your enemy shall afflict you.
54 When your enemies have surrounded your towns, even the most gentle and sensitive men among you will want food very desperately, with the result that they will [kill their own children and] eat their flesh, because they will not have anything else to eat. They will not even share any of it with their brothers or wives whom they love very much or with any of their children who are still alive.
He that is tender and very delicate within you shall look with an evil eye upon his brother, and the wife in his bosom, and the children that are left, which may have been left to him;
so as [not] to give to one of them of the flesh of his children, whom he shall eat, because of his having nothing left him in your straitness, and in your affliction, with which your enemies shall afflict you in all your cities.
56 Even the most gentle and sensitive/kind women among you, who are very refined/rich with the result that they have never had to walk anywhere [HYP], will do the same thing. When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that after they give birth to a baby, they will secretly [kill it and] eat its flesh and also eat its afterbirth. And they will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children.
And she that is tender and delicate among you, whose foot has not assayed to go upon the earth for delicacy and tenderness, shall look with an evil eye on her husband in her bosom, and her son and her daughter,
and her offspring that comes out between her feet, and the child which she shall bear; for she shall eat them because of the lack of all things, secretly in your straitness, and in your affliction, with which your enemy shall afflict you in your cities.
58 “If you do not faithfully obey all of the laws that I am writing, and if you do not revere Yahweh our glorious God [MTY],
If you will not listen to do all the words of this law, which have been written in this book, to fear this glorious and wonderful name, the Lord your God;
59 he will [punish you by] causing you and your descendants to experience great afflictions and plagues which will last for many years.
then the Lord shall magnify your plagues, and the plagues of your seed, great and wonderful plagues, and evil and dwelling diseases.
60 He will cause you to experience the plagues that he sent on the people of Egypt, and you will never be healed.
And he shall bring upon you all the evil pain of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cleave to you.
61 He will also cause you to experience many other sicknesses and diseases that I have not talked about in these laws, until you all will die.
And the Lord shall bring upon you every sickness, and every plague that is not written, and every one that is written in the book of this law, until he shall have destroyed you.
62 You became as numerous as the stars in the sky, but only a few of you will remain alive, if you do not obey Yahweh your God.
And you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the sky in multitude; because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.
63 Yahweh was very happy to do good things for you and to cause you to become very numerous, but now he will be happy to ruin you and get rid of you. [Those of] you [who do not die from these plagues] will be snatched away from the land that you will soon be entering to possess.
And it shall come to pass that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you; and you shall be quickly removed from the land, into which you go to inherit it.
64 “Yahweh will scatter you among many people-groups, all over the earth, and in those areas/places you will serve other gods that are made of wood or stone, gods which you and your ancestors have never known/worshiped.
And the Lord your God shall scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and you shall there serve other gods, wood and stone, which you have not known, nor your fathers.
65 In those places you will be restless. Yahweh will cause you to be constantly worried/anxious, feel hopeless, and discouraged.
Moreover among those nations he will not give you quiet, neither by any means shall the sole of your foot have rest; and the Lord shall give you there another and a misgiving heart, and failing eyes, and a wasting soul.
66 You will always be afraid that your enemies will kill you. You will be very fearful, all day and all night.
And your life shall be in suspense before your eyes; and you shall be afraid by day and by night, and you shall have no assurance of your life.
67 Because you will be very fearful/afraid because of the [terrible] things that you see, each morning you will say ‘I wish it were evening already!’ and each evening you will say ‘I wish it were morning already!’
In the morning you shall say, Would it were evening! and in the evening you shall say, Would it were morning! for the fear of your heart with which you shall fear, and for the sights of your eyes which you shall see.
68 Yahweh will send [some of] you back to Egypt in ships, even though he promised that you would never [be forced to] go there again. There in Egypt you will try to sell yourselves to become slaves of your enemies [in order to have food to eat], but no one will buy you. [All those things will happen to you if you do not obey the laws that Yahweh is giving to you].”
And the Lord shall bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said, You shall not see it again; and you shall be sold there to your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and none shall buy you.
