Deuteronomy 28:15-66
New Living Translation
Curses for Disobedience
15 “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:
16 Your towns and your fields
will be cursed.
17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
will be cursed.
18 Your children and your crops
will be cursed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
will be cursed.
19 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
you will be cursed.
20 “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. 21 The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die. 23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.
25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.
27 “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. 29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.
30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you. 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them. 33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you. 35 The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.
36 “The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone! 37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.
38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines. 40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity. 42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.
43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker. 44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!
45 “If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. 46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever. 47 If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.
49 “The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young. 51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death. 52 They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you.
53 “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you. 54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children. 55 He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 56 The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter. 57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.
58 “If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick. 60 He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief. 61 The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed. 62 Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.
63 “Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy. 64 For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone! 65 There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.
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Deuteronomy 28:15-66
The Voice
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[a] 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.[b]
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.
Deuteronomy 28:15-66
Amplified Bible
Consequences of Disobedience
15 “But it shall come about, if you do not listen to and obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 “You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field.
17 “Your basket and your kneading bowl will be cursed.
18 “The offspring of your body and the produce of your land, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flock will be cursed.
19 “You will be cursed when you come in and you will be cursed when you go out.
20 “The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your deeds, because you have [a]turned away from Me. 21 The Lord will make the pestilence and plague cling to you until He has consumed and eliminated you from the land which you are entering to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with consumption [causing you to waste away] and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew [on your crops]; and they will pursue you until you perish. 23 The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze [giving no rain and blocking all prayers], and the earth which is under you, iron [hard to plow and yielding no produce]. 24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out against them one way, but flee before them seven ways, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth [when they see your destruction].(A) 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
27 “The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and the itch that you cannot heal. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart and mind; 29 and you will be groping at noon [in broad daylight], just as the blind grope in the darkness, and nothing you do will prosper; but you will only be oppressed and exploited and robbed continually, with no one to save you. 30 You will be pledged to marry a wife, but another man will be intimate with her [before you]; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it; your donkey will be torn away from you, and it will not be returned to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them continually; but there will be nothing you can do.(B) 33 A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all the products of your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and exploited and crushed continually.(C) 34 You shall be driven mad by the sight of [b]the things you see. 35 The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs with sore boils that you cannot heal, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. 36 The Lord will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation which you and your fathers have never known; there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone.(D) 37 And you will become a horror, a proverb [a mere object lesson], and a taunt [a derisive joke] among all the people to which the Lord drives you.
38 “You will bring out a great quantity of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locusts will consume it.(E) 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because the worm will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not [c]anoint yourselves with the oil, because your olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours [for long], because they will go into captivity.(F) 42 The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground.(G) 43 The stranger who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you [out of his affluence], but you will not lend to him [because of your poverty]; he will be the head, and you the tail.
45 “So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you. 46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.
47 “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you], 48 you will therefore serve your enemies whom the Lord sends against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke [of slavery] 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 swift] as the eagle swoops down [to attack], a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a [d]defiant nation who will [e]have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young, 51 and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. 52 They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the Lord your God has given you. 53 Then you will eat the offspring of your own body [to avoid starvation], the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you.(H) 54 The man who is most refined and well-bred among you [f]will be cruel and hostile toward his brother and toward [g]the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain, 55 so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children [h]which he will eat, [i]because he has nothing else left, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities. 56 The most refined and well-bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and pampered, [j]will be cruel and hostile toward [k]the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, 57 and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her legs and toward the children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.
58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear and honor with reverence this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. 60 Moreover, He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. 61 Also the Lord will bring on you every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of this law, until you are destroyed. 62 Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number. 63 It shall come about that just as the Lord delighted over you to make you prosper and multiply, so the Lord will delight over you to bring you to ruin and destruction; and you will be [l]uprooted [violently] from the land which you are entering to possess. 64 And the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.(I) 65 Among those nations you will find no peace (rest), and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; night and day you will be filled with anxiety and have no assurance of living.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Deuteronomy 28:20 Lit forsaken.
- Deuteronomy 28:34 Lit your eyes which you.
- Deuteronomy 28:40 Olive oil was commonly used like a cosmetic to soften the skin, and as a hair dressing.
- Deuteronomy 28:50 Lit strong of face. Assyria and Babylonia have been suggested as prophetic fulfillments for this nation, and prophecy often has more than one fulfillment.
- Deuteronomy 28:50 Lit not lift up the face of.
- Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit his eye will be evil toward.
- Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit the wife of his bosom.
- Deuteronomy 28:55 The horror of the situation is understated: this self-absorbed father begins killing some of his children to feed himself. The rest of the family, also starving under the brutal conditions, probably want some of the macabre meal but the father keeps it all for himself.
- Deuteronomy 28:55 The implication is that under ordinary conditions, such a person would undoubtedly gag at eating perfectly good food that might be slightly stale or otherwise unappealing to him.
- Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit her eye will be evil toward.
- Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit the husband of her bosom.
- Deuteronomy 28:63 There have been many “uprootings” from the land, notably those by Nebuchadnezzar (605, 587, 586 b.c.), Titus (a.d. 70), and later by the Emperor Hadrian (a.d. 135) who issued a proclamation forbidding Jews to live in Judea, or even to approach its border. In his attempt to eradicate Judaism, among other things, Hadrian renamed the Roman province of Syria Palaestina (after the Philistines).
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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