Open English Translation DEU Chapter 28

28 If you, Yisrael, listen to what god Yahweh says and follow all his instructions that I’m giving you today, then he will make you the greatest of all the nations in the world,[ref] 2 and all these blessings will come to you if you listen to his voice:

3 You’ll be blessed in the city, and blessed in the countryside.

4 Your children, your harvests, and your calves, and lambs and kids will all be blessed.

5 Your basket and your kneading bowl will be blessed.

6 You’ll be blessed when you’re coming in and when you’re going out.

7 Yahweh will enable you to defeat your enemies who come to attack you—they’ll march in all orderly, but will flee from you in all directions.

8 Yahweh will decree a blessing on your barns and on all the work you do, and he’ll bless you in the land that he’s giving to you.

9 If you follow your God Yahweh’s instructions and do what he wants, he will establish you as his sacred people just like he promised. 10 Then all the peoples around the world will realise that Yahweh’s name is attached to you, and they’ll be afraid of you. 11 Yahweh will help you to really prosper through your children, your animals, and your harvests in the land that he promised to your ancestors that he’d give to you. 12 Yahweh will open his treasure house in the sky and send good rain when it’s needed and bless everything you do, so that you’ll lend money to many nations instead of needing to borrow it. 13 Yahweh will make you the head, not the tail. You’ll be above, not beneath, if you listen to your god Yahweh’s instructions that I’m giving you today, and follow them 14 Make sure you don’t turn away from those instructions, and never worship other gods.

15 On the other hand, if you don’t listen to your god Yahweh’s voice and keep following his instructions and obeying his rules that I’m giving you today, then all these curses will catch up to you and hit you:

16 You’ll be cursed in the city and cursed in the countryside.

17 Your basket and your kneading bowl will be cursed.

18 Your children, your harvests, and your calves, and lambs and kids will all be cursed.

19 You’ll be cursed when you’re coming in and when you’re going out.

20 Yahweh will send curses against you, and confusion and opposition in everything your country does until you’re destroyed and quickly eliminated because of your evil activities that demonstrate that you’ve abandoned me. 21 Yahweh will make the plague cling to you until he’s finished you from off the land that you’re about to enter and take ownership of. 22 Yahweh will send cancer and fever and inflammation. There’ll be fiery heat and drought, and blight and mildew, and will chase you until you die. 23 The overhead sky will be locked up like bronze, and the dryness will make the land like iron. 24 Instead of rain on your land, Yahweh will send powdered dust that will cover you until your country is destroyed.

25 Yahweh will allow your enemies to destroy you—your army will march in all orderly, but will flee from you in all directions, and all the other countries in the world will be horrified at what happens to you. 26 Your corpses will become food for birds and wild animals, and there’ll be no one left to scare them away. 27 Yahweh will afflict you with boils like he sent to the Egyptian people, along with ulcers, rashes, and itching which there’s no cure for. 28 Yahweh will strike you with madness and blindness, and with confused minds. 29 Even in the middle of the day, you’ll be groping around like blind people, and your projects won’t be successful. You’ll be oppressed and robbed continually, and there’ll be no one to rescue you.

30 A man will be engaged to a young woman, but someone else will rape her. You’ll build a house, but never get to live in it, and you’ll plant a vineyard, but not get to produce any wine. 31 Your cow will be slaughtered right in front of your eyes, but you won’t get to eat any of it. You donkey will be stolen right in front of you, but will never be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, but no one will help you rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be handed over to another country, and you’ll strain your eyes all day looking for them, but you won’t be able to do anything about it. 33 People from a country you’ve never heard of will harvest your crops and enjoy the results of your work, but you’ll just be oppressed and crushed. 34 All the things you witness will drive you to insanity. 35 Yahweh will strike your people with bad boils on your knees and legs that will never heal up—from the bottom of your soles right up to the tops of your heads.

36 Yahweh will lead you and the king that you’ll place over you, to a country that you and your ancestors have never been to, and you’ll end up serving other gods there made of wood or stone. 37 Those people in the countries that Yahweh will push you into will be horrified about you, and create sayings and jokes about you.

38 You’ll plant a lot of seed in your fields, but only gather a small harvest because locusts will eat the crops. 39 You’ll plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you won’t harvest the grapes or drink the wine, because worms will eat them. 40 You’ll have olive trees across your territory, but you won’t have any oil to rub on your skin, because the unripe olives will drop off the trees. 41 You’ll have sons and daughters, but you won’t be able to keep them because they’ll be taken away as captives. 42 Swarms of crickets will take over your trees and plants.

43 The foreigners who live among you will become more and more powerful and you’ll become less and less powerful. 44 They’ll lend to you, not you lending to them. The foreigner will be the head and you’ll be the tail.

45 All those curses will come on you and chase and overtake you until you’re destroyed because your country didn’t listen to the voice of your god Yahweh, or follow his instructions, or obey the rules that he gave you. 46 Those curses will afflict you and your descendants forever as signs 47 because you didn’t serve your god Yahweh with cheerfulness resulting from the abundance that you took for granted. 48 So then, Yahweh will send enemies against you and you’ll serve them in hunger and thirst, and in nakedness and lacking everything. Yahweh will put an iron yoke on your neck used for pulling heavy loads with, until he destroys you. 49 Yahweh will send a very distant nation against you. They’ll swoop in like an eagle—speaking a language that you won’t understand. 50 They’ll be fierce looking and with no mercy for either the elderly or the young. 51 They’ll eat the meat of your animals and the harvests from your crops until you’re destroyed. They won’t leave any grain or new wine, or calves, lambs, or kids—you’ll all die of hunger. 52 They’ll surround all your cities until your high, fortified walls that you trusted in come down all over your country. Yes, you’ll be contained inside your cities throughout the land the your god Yahweh has given you.

53 Due to that siege and the distress that you experience from the oppression of your enemies, you’ll end up eating the flesh of the sons and daughters that your god Yahweh has given you. 54 Even the most sensitive, kind-hearted man among you will be selfish towards his brother, towards the wife that he loves, and towards his own remaining children—55 withholding from them, the flesh of his children that he’ll eat, in his distress as he has nothing else left due to that siege and the oppression from your enemies that have surrounded your cities. 56 Even the most delicate, tender woman among you who never once stepped outside the house in her bare feet, will be selfish towards the husband that she loves and to her own son and her own daughter—[ref] 57 eating both her new baby and the placenta, in her distress as she has nothing else left due to that siege and the oppression from your enemies that have surrounded your cities.

58 If you don’t keep following all the instructions that are written in this book, i.e., not honouring and showing respect to your incredible god Yahweh, 59 then he’ll punish you by sending terrible plagues to you and your descendants, along with long-lasting illnesses. 60 All the plagues that he sent onto the Egyptians and which terrified you, he’ll send them onto you now and they’ll cling to you. 61 Every kind of sickness and disease that isn’t even written in this book, Yahweh will send them all onto you until you’re destroyed. 62 Even though you all had been as numerous as the stars in the sky, your country will be left underpopulated because you didn’t listen to your god Yahweh’s voice. 63 Just as Yahweh was happy to do good things for you and multiply you all, he would then be happy to to bring you all to ruin and destruction. Then you’ll be torn away from the land that you’re going in to take ownership of.

64 Yahweh will scatter you among all the peoples right around the world where you’ll serve gods made out of wood or stone that neither you nor your ancestors had heard of. 65 You won’t have any peace among those nations, and you’ll never be able to relax, but rather Yahweh will give you trembling hearts, sore eyes, and minds full of despair. 66 Time will go very slowly for you, and you’ll be scared both night and day, without any certainty in your life. 67 In the morning you’ll say, ‘If only it was evening,’ and in the evening you’ll say, ‘If only it was morning,’ because of the continual tightness in your stomach and because of the sights you’ll have to witness. 68 Yahweh will send some of you back to Egypt by ship, even though I’d told you that you’ll never see that country again. Then you’ll be offered there for sale as slaves, but no one will want to buy you.