Deuteronomy 28
1 If you listen carefully to the voice of Yahweh your God so as to keep all his commandments that I am commanding you today, Yahweh your God will set you above all the other nations of the earth.
“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.
2 All these blessings will come on you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.
If you obey Yahweh, this is what he will do to bless you:
3 Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be in the field.
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.
4 Blessed will be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.
He will bless you by giving you many children [IDM] and by giving you abundant crops, and plenty of cattle and sheep.
5 Blessed will be your basket and your kneading trough.
He will bless you by causing you to have good harvests with plenty of grain [MTY] to make bread.
6 Blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out.
He will bless you [everywhere]—when you go out [of your houses] and when you come into [your houses].
7 Yahweh will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck down before you; they will come out against you one way but will flee before you seven ways.
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.
8 Yahweh will command the blessing to come on you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to; he will bless you in the land that he is giving you.
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.
9 Yahweh will establish you as a people that is set apart for himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and walk in his ways.
“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.
10 All the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.
“When all the people-groups on the earth will realize that you belong to [MTY] Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.
11 Yahweh will make you very prosperous in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your cattle, in the fruit of your ground, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.
“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.
12 Yahweh will open to you his storehouse of the heavens to give the rain for your land at the right time, and to bless all the work of your hand; you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.
“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].
13 Yahweh will make you the head, and not the tail; you will be only above, and you will never be beneath, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you today, so as to observe and to do them,
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].
14 and if you do not turn away from any of the words that I am commanding you today, to the right hand or to the left, so as to go after other gods to serve them.
[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.
15 But if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, so as to keep all his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you.
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:
16 Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the field.
He will curse you when you are in the cities and he will curse you when you are [working] in the fields.
17 Cursed will be your basket and your kneading trough.
He will curse you by not allowing you to have good harvests with plenty of grain [MTY] to make bread.
18 Cursed will be the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.
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.
19 Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.
He will curse you [everywhere]—when you go out [of your houses] and when you come into [your houses].
20 Yahweh will send on you curses, confusion, and rebukes in all that you put your hand to, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly because of your wicked actions by which you will have forsaken me.
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}.
21 Yahweh will make the plague cling to you until he destroys you from off the land that you are going in to possess.
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.
22 Yahweh will attack you with infectious diseases, with fever, with inflammation, and with drought and blistering heat, and with scorching winds and mildew. These will pursue you until you perish.
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.
23 Your skies that are over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron.
There will be no rain [MET], [with the result that] the ground will be [as hard as] iron [MET].
24 Yahweh will make the rain of your land into powder and dust; from the heavens will it come down on you, until you are destroyed.
Instead of sending rain, Yahweh will send strong winds to blow sand and dust over your land, until your land is ruined.
25 Yahweh will cause you to be struck down before your enemies; you will go out one way against them but will flee before them seven ways. You will be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth.
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.
26 Your dead body will be food to all the birds of the heavens and to the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to frighten them away.
[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.
27 Yahweh will attack you with the boils of Egypt and with ulcers, scurvy, and itch, from which you cannot be healed.
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.
28 Yahweh will attack you with madness, with blindness, and with mental confusion.
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.
29 You will grope about at noonday like the blind grope in the darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; you will be always oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to save you.
[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.
30 You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will seize her and rape her. You will build a house but not live in it; you will plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit.
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].
31 Your ox will be slain before your eyes, but you will not eat its meat; your donkey will be forcibly taken away from before you and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to aid you.
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].
32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to other peoples; your eyes will look for them the entire day, but will fail with longing for them. There will be no strength in your hand.
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).
33 The harvest of your land and of all your labors—a nation that you do not know will eat it up; you will always be oppressed and crushed,
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].
34 so that you will become insane by what you have to see happen.
The result will be that all these terrible things that you see/experience will cause you to become insane.
35 Yahweh will attack you in the knees and legs with severe boils from which you cannot be cured, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.
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.
36 Yahweh will take you and the king whom you will place over yourself to a nation that you have not known, neither you nor your ancestors; there you will worship other gods of wood and stone.
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.
37 You will become a source of horror, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away.
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.
38 You will take much seed out into the field, but will gather little seed in, for the locusts will consume it.
You will plant plenty of seeds in your fields, but you will reap only a small harvest, because locusts will eat the crops.
39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will neither drink any of the wine, nor even gather in the grapes, for worms will eat them.
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.
40 You will have olive trees within all your territory, but you will not rub any of the oil on yourself, for your olive trees will drop their fruit.
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].
41 You will have sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, for they will go into captivity.
You will have sons and daughters, but they will not stay with you, because they will be captured and taken away.
42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground—the locusts will take them over.
Swarms of locusts/insects will eat your crops and [the leaves of] all your trees.
43 The foreigner who is among you will rise up above you higher and higher; you yourself will come down lower and lower.
Foreigners who live in your land will become more and more [powerful], and you will become less and less [powerful].
44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail.
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].
45 All these curses will come on you and will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. This will happen because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, so as to keep his commandments and his regulations that he commanded you.
“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.
46 These curses will be on you as signs and wonders, and on your descendants forever.
“These disasters will warn [DOU] you and your descendants forever [about what happens to groups who disobey Yahweh].
47 Because you did not worship Yahweh your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart when you were in prosperity,
“Because Yahweh blessed you abundantly in many ways, you should have served him very joyfully [DOU], but you did not do that.
48 therefore will you serve the enemies that Yahweh will send against you; you will serve them in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in poverty. He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he destroys you.
“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.
49 Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle flies to its victim, a nation whose language you do not understand;
“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.
50 a nation with a fierce face that does not respect the aged and does not show favor to the young.
They will be fierce looking. They will not act mercifully toward anyone, not even young children and old people.
51 They will eat the young of your cattle and the fruit of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave for you no grain, new wine, or oil, no young of your cattle or of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.
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].
52 They will besiege you in all your city gates, until your high and fortified walls come down everywhere in your land, walls in which you had trusted. They will besiege you within all your city gates throughout all the land that Yahweh your God had given you.
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.
53 You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God gave you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will put upon you.
“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.
54 The man who is tender and very delicate among you—he will be envious of his brother and his own dear wife, and of whatever children he has left.
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.
55 So he will not give to any of them the flesh of his own children that he is going to eat, because he will have nothing left for himself in the siege and in the distress which your enemy will put upon you within all your city gates.
56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to put the bottom of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness—she will be envious of her own dear husband, of her son, and of her daughter,
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.
57 and of her own newborn that comes out from between her legs, and of the children whom she will bear. She will eat them in private for lack of anything else, during the siege and in the distress which your enemy will put upon you within your city gates.
58 If you do not keep all the words of this law that are written in this book, so as to honor this glorious and fearful name, Yahweh your God,
“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],
59 then Yahweh will make your plagues terrible, and those of your descendants; they will be great plagues, of long duration, and severe diseases, of long duration.
he will [punish you by] causing you and your descendants to experience great afflictions and plagues which will last for many years.
60 He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt that you were afraid of; they will cling to you.
He will cause you to experience the plagues that he sent on the people of Egypt, and you will never be healed.
61 Also every sickness and plague that is not written in the book of this law, those also Yahweh will bring on you until you are destroyed.
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.
62 You will be left few in number, although you were like the stars of the heavens in number, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.
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.
63 As Yahweh once rejoiced over you in doing you good, and in multiplying you, so he will rejoice over you in making you perish and in destroying you. You will be plucked off the land that you are going into to possess.
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.
64 Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples from the one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; there you will worship other gods that you have not known, neither you nor your ancestors, gods of wood and stone.
“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.
65 Among these nations will you find no ease, and there will be no rest for the bottoms of your feet; instead, Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a soul that mourns.
In those places you will be restless. Yahweh will cause you to be constantly worried/anxious, feel hopeless, and discouraged.
66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will fear every night and day and will have no certainty at all in your life.
You will always be afraid that your enemies will kill you. You will be very fearful, all day and all night.
67 In the morning you will say, 'I wish it were evening!' and in the evening you will say, 'I wish it were morning!' because of the fear in your hearts and the things your eyes will have to see.
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!’
68 Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again by ships, by the route about which I had said to you, 'You will not see Egypt again.' There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will purchase you.”
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].”
