28 “Be faithful in obeying the Lord your God. Be careful to keep all His Laws which I tell you today. And the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. ² All these good things will come upon you if you will obey the Lord your God. ³ Good will come to you in the city, and good will come to you in the country. ⁴ Good will come to your children, and the fruit of your ground, and the young of your animals. Your cattle and flock will have many young ones. ⁵ Good will come to your basket and your bread pan. ⁶ Good will come to you when you come in, and when you go out.

⁷ “The Lord will cause you to win the battles against those who fight against you. They will come against you one way, and run away from you seven ways. ⁸ The Lord will send good upon you in your store-houses and in all your work. He will bring good to you in the land the Lord your God gives you. ⁹ The Lord will make you a holy nation to Himself, as He promised you. But you must keep the Laws of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰ Then all the nations of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they will be afraid of you. ¹¹ The Lord will give much to you. He will give you many children, and many young ones among your animals, and much food from the ground, in the land the Lord promised to your fathers to give you. ¹² The Lord will open for you His good store-house, the heavens. He will give rain to your land at the right time. He will bring good to all the work you do. You will give to many nations. But you will not use anything that belongs to them. ¹³ The Lord will make you the head and not the tail. If you listen to the Laws of the Lord your God which I tell you today and be careful to obey them, you will only be above and not below. ¹⁴ Do not turn aside from any of the words I tell you today, to the right or to the left. Do not follow other gods and work for them.

¹⁵ “If you will not obey the Lord your God or be careful to do all His Laws which I tell you today, all these curses will come upon you. ¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city, and in the country. ¹⁷ Your basket and your bread pan will be cursed. ¹⁸ Your children will be cursed, and the fruit of your ground, and the young of your cattle and flock. ¹⁹ You will be cursed when you come in and when you go out.

²⁰ “The Lord will send upon you curses, trouble and sharp words in all you try to do, until you are destroyed. You will be quick to die, because of the sinful things you do, and because you have turned away from Me. ²¹ The Lord will make disease to be with you until He has destroyed you from the land you are going in to take. ²² The Lord will punish you with a wasting disease, a hot sickness, growing pain, heat like fire, the sword, and diseases that destroy your food. They will follow you until you die. ²³ The heavens above your head will be brass. And the earth under you will be iron. ²⁴ The Lord will change the rain of your land into dust. It will come down on you until you are destroyed. ²⁵ The Lord will cause you to lose the battle against those who hate you. You will go one way against them, but run seven ways away from them. You will fill all the nations of the earth with fear. ²⁶ Your dead bodies will be food for all the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth. There will be no one to make them afraid and to send them away.

²⁷ “The Lord will punish you with the sores of Egypt, growing sores, and skin diseases, that will not be healed. ²⁸ The Lord will punish you by making you crazy, and blind, and troubled in your mind. ²⁹ You will have to feel for your way at noon, as the blind man feels his way in darkness. And your way will not go well. It will be made hard for you, and you will always be robbed. There will be no one to save you. ³⁰ You will marry a wife. But another man will lie with her. You will build a house. But you will not live in it. You will plant vines. But you will not eat the fruit. ³¹ Your bull will be killed in front of you. But you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be taken from you, and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to those who hate you. No one will help you. ³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation. Your eyes will watch for them always and you will have much desire for them. But there will be nothing you can do. ³³ A nation you have not known will eat the food of your field and of your work. You will suffer under the power of others always. ³⁴ You will be driven crazy by what you see. ³⁵ The Lord will make sores on your knees and legs that you cannot heal, from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head. ³⁶ The Lord will bring you and your chosen king to a nation that you and your fathers have not known. There you will work for other gods, of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become a people who are hated, who are made fun of, and a shame among the people where the Lord will send you.

³⁸ “You will sow much seed in the field, but gather little, for the locust will eat it. ³⁹ You will plant and take care of vines, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, for worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees everywhere. But you will not pour the oil upon yourself, for your olives will fall off. ⁴¹ You will have sons and daughters, but you will not keep them, for they will be taken away. ⁴² The locust will own all your trees and the food of your field. ⁴³ The stranger among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will become less and less. ⁴⁴ He will give to you. But you will not give to him. He will be the head and you will be the tail. ⁴⁵ All these curses will come upon you. They will follow you and come upon you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping all the Laws He gave you. ⁴⁶ They will be something special to see, and a powerful work upon you and your children forever. ⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart because of all He has given you, ⁴⁸ you will serve those who hate you, whom the Lord will send against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, without clothing, and needing all things. He will put a heavy load on your neck until He has destroyed you.

⁴⁹ “The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as fast as an eagle flies. It will be a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a nation that shows a hard face. It will have no respect for the old, or show favor to the young. ⁵¹ It will eat the young ones of your cattle and the food of your field until you are destroyed. It will leave you no grain, new wine, oil, or the young of your cattle or flock, until it has caused you to die. ⁵² Your towns will be taken over by its armies until your high strong walls that you have trusted in come down everywhere in your land. Its armies will take over all your towns everywhere in the land the Lord your God has given you. ⁵³ During this time and because of the trouble caused by those who hate you, you will eat your own children, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you. ⁵⁴ The most gentle man among you will be against his brother, the wife he loves, and the children he still has. ⁵⁵ He will not give them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because it is all he has left for himself. This is how bad the trouble will be that those who hate you will bring to all your towns. ⁵⁶ The most gentle woman among you may be careful not to set the bottom of her foot on the ground. But she will be hard to the husband she loves, to her son and daughter, ⁵⁷ to the afterbirth which comes out of her body, and to the children who are born from her. She will eat them in secret because she has nothing else. This is how bad the trouble will be that those who hate you will bring to all your towns.

⁵⁸ “If you are not careful to obey all the words of the Law which are written in this book, to fear this honored name of the Lord your God, ⁵⁹ then the Lord will bring bad diseases on you and your children, hard and lasting diseases and sicknesses. ⁶⁰ He will bring all the diseases upon you that you were afraid of in Egypt. And they will stay with you. ⁶¹ The Lord will bring upon you every sickness and every trouble which is not written in the book of this Law also, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You will have been as many as the stars of heaven but there will be few of you left, because you did not obey the Lord your God. ⁶³ As the Lord was happy with you and caused good to come to you and you were many, He will be happy to bring trouble upon you and destroy you. And you will be taken from the land you are going in to take. ⁶⁴ The Lord will spread you out among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods, of wood and stone, which you and your fathers have not known. ⁶⁵ You will find no rest among those nations. There will be no place of rest for the bottom of your foot. But there the Lord will give you fear in your heart, eyes that become weak, and sorrow in your soul. ⁶⁶ Your life will be full of doubts. You will be afraid night and day. And you will not be sure of anything in your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If it were only evening!’ In the evening you will say, ‘If it were only morning!’ because of the fear of your heart, and the things your eyes see. ⁶⁸ The Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, in the way I said, ‘You will never see it again.’ There you will try to sell yourselves as men and women servants to those who hate you. But no one will buy you.”