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Deuteronomy 27-28
The Voice
Deuteronomy 27-28
The Voice
This major section of the book closes with a declaration that a covenant has now officially been made between the Lord and the current generation in Israel. Now the covenant has to be ratified and enforced.
Ancient treaties that great kings made with their subjects included a “document clause” that specified what each party would do with its own copy of the treaty. These copies were kept in prominent places, typically in the temples of the gods the kings worshiped. In the case of the covenant between God and Israel, the stone tablets are to stay inside the Lord’s covenant chest at Israel’s central place of worship. In addition, Moses specifies that a copy of the entire treaty must be written on giant stones and put on top of a mountain in the middle of Israel’s new territory.
27 Moses (commanding the people, with Israel’s elders supporting him): Obey all the commands I’m giving you today, and listen to the elders when they help you enact them. 2 When you cross the Jordan into the land the Eternal your God is giving you, set up some giant stones and whitewash them with lime. 3 Write each word of this law on them when you cross the Jordan to enter the land He is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey that the Eternal, God of your ancestors, promised you. 4 When you cross the Jordan, you will set up these stones on Mount Ebal and whitewash them with lime just as I’ve commanded you this day. 5 Build an altar there to Him with stones that iron has never struck; 6 with stones you find whole, build an altar to Him. Offer burnt offerings on the altar to Him. 7 Then sacrifice peace offerings and have a celebration feast in His presence. 8 And remember, write a complete copy of the law on the large stones. Make it clearly legible.
Ancient treaties included a list of blessings and curses. Ordinarily each party would call upon their own gods and ask for particular blessings for keeping the treaty or for particular curses if they broke it. In this treaty, however, the blessings and curses are spoken only to the people of Israel. It’s not necessary to pronounce any blessing or curses on the Lord because there’s no danger He’ll forget or break any of His agreements!
Moses (to all of Israel, with the Levitical priests supporting him): 9 Keep silent, and listen, Israel! Today you’ve become the Eternal’s very own people, and He’s become your God; 10 so listen to the voice of the Eternal your God and obey the commands and regulations I’m giving you today.
11 That day Moses charged the people.
Moses: 12 When you cross the Jordan River and settle in the land, hold a ceremony to ratify this covenant with the Lord. The tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin will stand on the slope of Mount Gerizim to bless the people, 13 and the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali will stand on Mount Ebal, representing the curse that will fall on anyone who breaks the covenant. 14 The Levites will shout in a loud voice, so that every Israelite can hear them and respond to the curses.
Levites: 15 A curse on anyone who carves or casts an idol, something so horrifying to the Eternal, and secretly worships what human craftsmen have made!
People: Let it be so![a]
Levites: 16 A curse on anyone who treats his father or mother with contempt!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 17 A curse on anyone who steals his neighbor’s land by moving a boundary marker!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 18 A curse on anyone who leads a blind person down the wrong road!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 19 A curse on anyone who deprives a foreigner, orphan, or widow of justice!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 20 A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with his father’s wife, who violates the sanctity of his father’s intimate relations!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 21 A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with an animal!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 22 A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with his sister—his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 23 A curse on anyone who has sexual relations with his wife’s mother!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 24 A curse on anyone who murders his neighbor when no one else is watching!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 25 A curse on anyone who causes the death of the innocent just for a bribe!
People: Let it be so!
Levites: 26 A curse on anyone who doesn’t live by and do all that is written in the law![b]
People: Let it be so!
It is a fearful thing to promise God obedience and break that promise.
28 Moses: If you listen closely to the voice of the Eternal your God and carefully obey all the commands I’m giving you today, He’ll lift you up high above every other nation on earth. 2 All of the following blessings will be yours—in fact, they’ll chase after you—if you’ll listen to what He tells you.
Moses now recites the blessings that will come to the people if they keep their covenant with the Lord and the curses they’ll experience if they don’t. By making these a part of the treaty itself, Moses is calling on God to use them to enforce the covenant.
The blessings are listed first. This reflects God’s primary intention toward us: to bless and not to curse. When the Lord reveals His glory and character to Moses (Exodus 34:6–7), He declares at length that He’s a God of love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and only then adds that He will never allow injustice.
Moses: 3 You’ll be blessed in the city and blessed in the fields.
4 You’ll be blessed with children and crops and cattle.
Your herds will multiply, and your flocks will increase.
5 Your basket will be blessed; it will be full at harvest time,
and your kneading bowl will be blessed; you’ll always have plenty of bread.
6 You’ll be blessed when you go out of your home
and blessed when you return to your home.
7 When your enemies attack you, the Eternal will defeat them for you. They’ll come against you from one direction, but scatter and flee chaotically from you in seven different directions. 8 He will bless your barns, and they’ll be full of grain; He’ll bless everything you do. You’ll be blessed throughout the land He is giving you. 9 The Eternal will make you a nation that belongs to Him in a special way, just as He promised He would, if you’ll obey the commands of the Eternal your God and live as He wants you to. 10 Every other nation on earth will see the Eternal has called you by His own name, so they’ll be in awe of you.
11 The Eternal will give you more than enough of every good thing—children, cattle, and crops—as you live on the ground He promised your ancestors He’d give you. 12 He will open up the reservoirs of water in the sky and make the rainy seasons come each year, so that everything you do will be blessed. Your produce will be so abundant that you’ll lend to many nations, but you won’t have to borrow from any. 13 He will make you the head, not the tail; you’ll always be on top and never on the bottom—if you’ll just listen to the commands I’m giving you today from the Eternal your God, and obey them carefully. 14 All these blessings will be yours if you don’t deviate at all, neither to the right nor to the left, from any of the things I’m commanding you today, if you don’t go and worship other gods!
Moses must now invoke the curses that will come upon the people if they break their covenant with the Lord and worship other gods. He begins with a series of general curses that reverse the general blessings that have just been promised for obedience and faithfulness. But the curses quickly become very specific, predicting that things like plague, disease, and war will devastate the land. These curses will eventually become very personal with skin diseases; they will also make a person ritually impure and thus unable to participate in the community’s worship. As long as the diseases are present, even if they are incurable, those who suffer from them are banned from the temple. The punishment for choosing not to worship God, in other words, is ultimately not being able to worship God.
Moses: 15 But if you won’t listen to the voice of the Eternal your God, if you don’t carefully obey the commands and regulations I’m giving you today, then you’ll experience all of the following curses—in fact, they’ll come after you!
16 You’ll be cursed in the city and cursed in the fields.
17 Your baskets will be cursed, and your harvests will be small.
Your kneading bowl will be cursed, and you’ll always be short of food.
18 Your children and your crops will be cursed.
Your herds will dwindle, and your flocks will shrink.
19 You’ll be cursed when you return to your home and cursed when you go out from your home.
Eternal One: 20 I’ll oppose everything you try to do! I’ll send curses and panic and setbacks until you’re destroyed, suddenly and completely, because of the evil things you did when you abandoned Me!
Moses: 21-22 The Eternal will strike you with plague—consumption and fever and inflammation—in the land where you’re going to live, and it will never leave until none of you are left alive there. He’ll afflict your land with heat and drought; He’ll afflict your crops with blight and mildew. All of these things will keep coming after you until you’re destroyed! 23 The skies overhead will be like a bronze shield that no rain can penetrate, and the land beneath your feet will be like iron that no seeds can sprout through. 24 Instead of rainstorms, the Eternal will send dust storms down on your land, and you’ll be destroyed. 25 He will hand you over to your enemies already defeated. You’ll attack them in an organized unit from one direction, but you’ll scatter and flee from them as scared individuals in seven different directions. Every kingdom on earth will tremble with fear when they hear what happens to you. 26 Your dead bodies will lie unburied in the open field. The wild birds and animals will eat them, and no one will chase the scavengers away.
27 The Eternal will afflict you with all kinds of incurable skin diseases, such as the boils that were a plague in Egypt; you’ll suffer tumors[c] and scurvy and itch, but you’ll never find relief. 35 He will afflict you with severe, incurable boils on your knees and legs, and they’ll spread until they cover your whole body, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.[d]
28 The Eternal will afflict you
with madness and blindness and confusion.
29 As you try to figure out which way to go in life,
you’ll be groping around the way a blind person gropes in the darkness,
even in the middle of the day.
You’ll never find your way, and you’ll never be prosperous.
You’ll be exploited and robbed all the time, and no one will rescue you.
30 You’ll get engaged to a woman, but another man will violate her.
You’ll build a house but never live in it.
You’ll plant a vineyard but never enjoy its fruit.
31 Your ox will be slaughtered as you look on helplessly, and others will eat it.
Your donkey will be taken away from you and never returned.
Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will help you get them back.
32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to foreigners as slaves. You’ll always be watching for their return, until your eyes grow dim, but there will be nothing you can do to bring them back. 33 Foreigners will eat up all your crops and take everything else you’ve worked for. You’ll be oppressed and abused constantly. 34 You’ll be driven mad by what you see! 36 The Eternal will send all of you, including your chosen king, into exile, to a country you’ve never heard of, not even from your ancestors. There you’ll worship other gods made of wood and stone. 37 Whenever the people who live in the places where the Eternal has sent you want to scare someone or insult someone or teach a lesson, they’ll say that what happened to you is going to happen to them. Your name will be synonymous with disaster!
38 You’ll sow many seeds, but you’ll harvest only a few because locusts will devour them before they produce. 39 You’ll plant vineyards and tend them, but you won’t drink any wine or collect any grapes because worms will eat them. 40 You’ll have olive trees throughout your territory, but you won’t anoint yourself with oil because the trees will be diseased and the olives will drop off before they ripen. 41 You’ll still have children, but they won’t stay with you; they’ll be taken into captivity. 42 Your orchards and crops will be infested with buzzing locusts. 43 The foreigners who live in your country will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower in every aspect of life. 44 They will lend to you, but you won’t lend to them; they’ll be the head, and you’ll be the tail. 45 You’ll experience all of these curses—they’ll chase after you and overtake you and destroy you—because you did not listen to the voice of the Eternal and obey the commands and regulations He gave you. 46 These curses will test you and leave you in awe of His signs and wonders against you and your descendants forever.
This list of futility curses is followed by a grisly description of the horrors of foreign invasion and siege. The people, unfortunately, will experience these very terrors when Assyria invades the Northern Kingdom of Israel, conquering it in 722 b.c. and exiling the population, and when Babylon invades the Southern Kingdom of Judah, destroying Jerusalem in 587 b.c. and carrying the people off into exile.
Moses: 47 Because you didn’t serve the Eternal your God in joy and gladness when you had an abundance of everything, 48 you’ll serve the enemies the Eternal sends against you, in hunger and thirst and nakedness and destitution. He’ll put an iron yoke on your neck until He’s destroyed you.
49 The Eternal will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like an eagle. This will be a nation whose language you don’t understand, 50 a ruthless nation that doesn’t respect the old or spare the young. 51 They’ll eat up your young cattle and crops until you have nothing left. They won’t leave you any grain or new wine or oil, or young animals in your herds or flocks. And that lack will kill you. 52 They’ll lay siege to all of you and all of your cities throughout the land the Eternal your God is giving you, until the high, fortifying walls you feel so safe within have all been knocked down all over your nation.
53 These enemy sieges will cause you so much hardship that you’ll resort to cannibalism! You’ll eat the flesh of the sons and daughters that the Eternal your God has given you. 54 Even the gentlest, most sensitive man among you will turn against his brother and his beloved wife and the rest of his children who haven’t been exiled. 55 He won’t even give them anything to eat from the flesh of the children he’s devouring because the hardship of the enemy siege will be so severe in every city that he’ll have nothing else to eat himself. 56 Even the gentlest, most delicate woman among you, who wouldn’t even let her foot touch the ground because she’s so refined, will turn against her beloved husband and against her son and daughter. 57 She’ll feel no compassion toward any other children she bears and no delicacy about the afterbirth when it comes out. She’ll eat her newborns and the afterbirth in secret because the hardship of the enemy siege will be so severe in every city that she’ll have nothing else to eat.
58 If you don’t carefully obey every word of this law that’s written in this book, if you don’t fear your God’s glorious and awesome name, “Eternal One,” 59 then He will strike you and your descendants with extraordinary plagues that will be widespread and long-lasting, with serious, persistent illnesses. 60 He’ll bring back all the Egyptian diseases you were so afraid of when you lived there, and you’ll suffer from them continuously. 61 He will even afflict you with diseases and plagues that aren’t written about in this book of the law until you’re destroyed. 62 Only a few of you will be left, even though there used to be as many of you as there were stars in the sky, because you wouldn’t listen to the voice of the Eternal your God. 63 Even though it used to give the Eternal great pleasure to do good things for you and to increase your numbers, He’ll delight in killing and destroying you completely. You’ll be torn from the land you’re going to possess, 64 and He will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you’ll worship other gods, made of wood and stone, that you and your ancestors have never worshiped before. 65 Among those nations you’ll never be at rest, and you’ll never be able to settle down. He will make your hearts tremble, your eyes fail from crying, and your soul languish from despair. 66 Your life will hang by a thread; you’ll be terrified day and night, knowing you could die any minute. 67 You’ll be so terrified, and you’ll see such awful things, that in the morning you’ll say, “If only evening would come, and this day would be over!” And in the evening you’ll say, “If only morning would come, and this night would be over!” 68 The Eternal will bring you back to Egypt in ships, even though I told you you’d never go back there again. You’ll offer yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
Deuteronomy 27-28
New International Version
Deuteronomy 27-28
New International Version
The Altar on Mount Ebal
27 Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people: “Keep all these commands(A) that I give you today. 2 When you have crossed the Jordan(B) into the land the Lord your God is giving you, set up some large stones(C) and coat them with plaster.(D) 3 Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey,(E) just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. 4 And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal,(F) as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. 5 Build there an altar(G) to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. Do not use any iron tool(H) on them. 6 Build the altar of the Lord your God with fieldstones and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. 7 Sacrifice fellowship offerings(I) there, eating them and rejoicing(J) in the presence of the Lord your God.(K) 8 And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones(L) you have set up.”(M)
Curses From Mount Ebal
9 Then Moses and the Levitical(N) priests said to all Israel, “Be silent, Israel, and listen! You have now become the people of the Lord your God.(O) 10 Obey the Lord your God and follow his commands and decrees that I give you today.”
11 On the same day Moses commanded the people:
12 When you have crossed the Jordan, these tribes shall stand on Mount Gerizim(P) to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar,(Q) Joseph and Benjamin.(R) 13 And these tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal(S) to pronounce curses: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali.
14 The Levites shall recite to all the people of Israel in a loud voice:
15 “Cursed is anyone who makes an idol(T)—a thing detestable(U) to the Lord, the work of skilled hands—and sets it up in secret.”
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”(V)
16 “Cursed is anyone who dishonors their father or mother.”(W)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
17 “Cursed is anyone who moves their neighbor’s boundary stone.”(X)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
18 “Cursed is anyone who leads the blind astray on the road.”(Y)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
19 “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner,(Z) the fatherless or the widow.”(AA)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
20 “Cursed is anyone who sleeps with his father’s wife, for he dishonors his father’s bed.”(AB)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
21 “Cursed is anyone who has sexual relations with any animal.”(AC)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
22 “Cursed is anyone who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.”(AD)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
23 “Cursed is anyone who sleeps with his mother-in-law.”(AE)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
24 “Cursed is anyone who kills(AF) their neighbor secretly.”(AG)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
25 “Cursed is anyone who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.”(AH)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”
26 “Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.”(AI)
Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”(AJ)
Blessings for Obedience
28 If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow(AK) all his commands(AL) I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.(AM) 2 All these blessings will come on you(AN) and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:
3 You will be blessed(AO) in the city and blessed in the country.(AP)
4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.(AQ)
5 Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.(AR)
7 The Lord will grant that the enemies(AS) who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.(AT)
8 The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless(AU) you in the land he is giving you.
9 The Lord will establish you as his holy people,(AV) as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands(AW) of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him. 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name(AX) of the Lord, and they will fear you. 11 The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock(AY) and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you.(AZ)
12 The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse(BA) of his bounty,(BB) to send rain(BC) on your land in season and to bless(BD) all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.(BE) 13 The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow(BF) them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.(BG) 14 Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left,(BH) following other gods and serving them.
Curses for Disobedience
15 However, if you do not obey(BI) the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today,(BJ) all these curses will come on you and overtake you:(BK)
16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.(BL)
17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.(BM)
18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.(BN)
19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.(BO)
20 The Lord will send on you curses,(BP) confusion and rebuke(BQ) in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin(BR) because of the evil(BS) you have done in forsaking him.[a] 21 The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.(BT) 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease,(BU) with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought,(BV) with blight(BW) and mildew, which will plague(BX) you until you perish.(BY) 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.(BZ) 24 The Lord will turn the rain(CA) of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.
25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated(CB) before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven,(CC) and you will become a thing of horror(CD) to all the kingdoms on earth.(CE) 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds(CF) and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away.(CG) 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt(CH) and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope(CI) about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue(CJ) you.
30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her.(CK) You will build a house, but you will not live in it.(CL) You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.(CM) 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation,(CN) and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression(CO) all your days.(CP) 34 The sights you see will drive you mad.(CQ) 35 The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils(CR) that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.(CS)
36 The Lord will drive you and the king(CT) you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors.(CU) There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.(CV) 37 You will become a thing of horror,(CW) a byword(CX) and an object of ridicule(CY) among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.(CZ)
38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little,(DA) because locusts(DB) will devour(DC) it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine(DD) or gather the grapes, because worms will eat(DE) them.(DF) 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.(DG) 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity.(DH) 42 Swarms of locusts(DI) will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.
43 The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.(DJ) 44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them.(DK) They will be the head, but you will be the tail.(DL)
45 All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you(DM) until you are destroyed,(DN) because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.(DO) 47 Because you did not serve(DP) the Lord your God joyfully and gladly(DQ) in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst,(DR) in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke(DS) on your neck(DT) until he has destroyed you.
49 The Lord will bring a nation against you(DU) from far away, from the ends of the earth,(DV) like an eagle(DW) swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,(DX) 50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old(DY) or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine(DZ) or olive oil,(EA) nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.(EB) 52 They will lay siege(EC) to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.(ED)
53 Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.(EE) 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.(EF) 56 The most gentle and sensitive(EG) woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter(EH) 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them(EI) secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.
58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law,(EJ) which are written in this book, and do not revere(EK) this glorious and awesome name(EL)—the Lord your God— 59 the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt(EM) that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law,(EN) until you are destroyed.(EO) 62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky(EP) will be left but few(EQ) in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. 63 Just as it pleased(ER) the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please(ES) him to ruin and destroy you.(ET) You will be uprooted(EU) from the land you are entering to possess.
64 Then the Lord will scatter(EV) you among all nations,(EW) from one end of the earth to the other.(EX) There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.(EY) 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place(EZ) for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes(FA) weary with longing, and a despairing heart.(FB) 66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, 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 terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.(FC) 68 The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again.(FD) There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 28:20 Hebrew me
The Voice (VOICE)
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
New International Version (NIV) 
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