Deuteronomy 28
English Standard Version
Blessings for Obedience
28 “And (A)if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you (B)high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and (C)overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and (D)blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be (E)the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your (F)kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be (G)when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 “The Lord (H)will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 The Lord (I)will command the blessing on you in your barns and (J)in all that you undertake. (K)And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9 (L)The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10 And (M)all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are (N)called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be (O)afraid of you. 11 And (P)the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in (Q)the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, (R)to give the rain to your land in its season and (S)to bless all the work of your hands. And (T)you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 And the Lord will make you (U)the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, 14 (V)and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Curses for Disobedience
15 “But (W)if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and (X)overtake you. 16 Cursed shall you be (Y)in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. 17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 19 Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20 “The Lord (Z)will send on you curses, confusion, and (AA)frustration in all that you undertake to do, (AB)until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. 21 The Lord will make (AC)the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 22 (AD)The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought[a] and with (AE)blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And (AF)the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 (AG)“The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you (AH)shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And (AI)your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and (AJ)there shall be no one to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will strike you (AK)with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and (AL)scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will strike you with (AM)madness and blindness and confusion of mind, 29 and you shall (AN)grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.[b] And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you. 30 (AO)You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. (AP)You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. (AQ)You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat any of it. Your donkey shall be seized before your face, but shall not be restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies, but there shall be no one to help you. 32 (AR)Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, (AS)but you shall be helpless. 33 A nation that you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, 34 so that you are driven mad (AT)by the sights that your eyes see. 35 The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs (AU)with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36 “The Lord will (AV)bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you (AW)nor your fathers have known. And (AX)there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. 37 And you shall become (AY)a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away. 38 (AZ)You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for (BA)the locust shall consume it. 39 (BB)You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you (BC)shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. 41 You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for (BD)they shall go into captivity. 42 (BE)The cricket[c] shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground. 43 (BF)The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 (BG)He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. (BH)He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
45 (BI)“All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. 46 They shall be (BJ)a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. 47 (BK)Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he (BL)will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49 (BM)The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, (BN)swooping down like the eagle, a nation (BO)whose language you do not understand, 50 a hard-faced nation (BP)who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. 51 It shall (BQ)eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.
52 “They shall (BR)besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. 53 And (BS)you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, (BT)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. 54 The man who is the most tender and refined among you will (BU)begrudge food to his brother, to (BV)the wife he embraces,[d] and to the last of the children whom he has left, 55 so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, (BW)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. 56 (BX)The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces,[e] to her son and to her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, (BY)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.
58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, (BZ)the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. 60 And he will bring upon you again all (CA)the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. 62 Whereas (CB)you were as numerous (CC)as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 63 And as the Lord (CD)took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will (CE)take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
64 “And the Lord (CF)will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and (CG)there you shall serve other gods (CH)of wood and stone, (CI)which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And (CJ)among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but (CK)the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and (CL)a languishing soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. 67 (CM)In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and (CN)the sights that your eyes shall see. 68 And the Lord (CO)will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that (CP)you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 28:22 Or sword
- Deuteronomy 28:29 Or shall not succeed in finding your ways
- Deuteronomy 28:42 Identity uncertain
- Deuteronomy 28:54 Hebrew the wife of his bosom
- Deuteronomy 28:56 Hebrew the husband of her bosom
Deuteronomy 28
Contemporary English Version
The Lord Will Bless You if You Obey
Moses said to Israel:
28 1-2 (A) Today I am giving you the laws and teachings of the Lord your God. Always obey them, and the Lord will make Israel the most famous and important nation on earth, and he will bless you in many ways.
3 The Lord will make your businesses and your farms successful.
4 You will have many children. You will harvest large crops, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats will produce many young.
5 You will have plenty of bread[a] to eat.
6 The Lord will make you successful in your daily work.
7 The Lord will help you defeat your enemies and make them scatter in all directions.
8 The Lord your God is giving you the land, and he will make sure you are successful in everything you do. Your harvests will be so large that your storehouses will be full.
9 If you follow and obey the Lord, he will make you his own special people, just as he promised. 10 Then everyone on earth will know that you belong to the Lord, and they will be afraid of you.
11 The Lord will give you a lot of children and make sure that your animals give birth to many young. The Lord promised your ancestors that this land would be yours, and he will make it produce large crops for you.
12 The Lord will open the storehouses of the skies where he keeps the rain, and he will send rain on your land at just the right times. He will make you successful in everything you do. You will have plenty of money to lend to other nations, but you won't need to borrow any yourself.
13 Obey the laws and teachings that I'm giving you today, and the Lord your God will make Israel a leader among the nations, and not a follower. Israel will be wealthy and powerful, not poor and weak. 14 But you must not reject any of his laws and teachings or worship other gods.
The Lord Will Put Curses on You if You Disobey
(Leviticus 26.14-46)
Moses said:
15 Israel, today I am giving you the laws and teachings of the Lord your God. And if you don't obey them all, he will put many curses on you.
16 Your businesses and farms will fail.
17 You won't have enough bread[b] to eat.
18 You'll have only a few children, your crops will be small, and your herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats won't produce many young.
19 The Lord will make you fail in everything you do.
20 No matter what you try to accomplish, the Lord will confuse you, and you will feel his anger. You won't last long, and you may even meet with disaster, all because you rejected the Lord.
21-23 The Lord will send terrible diseases to attack you, and you will never be well again. You will suffer with burning fever and swelling and pain until you die somewhere in the land that you captured.
The Lord will make the sky overhead seem like a bronze roof that keeps out the rain, and the ground under your feet will become as hard as iron. Your crops will be scorched by the hot east wind or ruined by mildew. 24 He will send dust and sandstorms instead of rain, and you will be wiped out.
25 The Lord will let you be defeated by your enemies, and you will scatter in all directions. You will be a horrible sight for the other nations to see, 26 and no one will disturb the birds and wild animals while they eat your dead bodies.
27 The Lord will make you suffer with diseases that will cause oozing sores or crusty itchy patches on your skin or boils like the ones that are common in Egypt. And there will be no cure for you! 28 You will become insane and go blind. The Lord will make you so confused, 29 that even in bright sunshine you will have to feel your way around like a blind person, who cannot tell day from night. For the rest of your life, people will beat and rob you, and no one will be able to stop them.
30 A man will be engaged to a woman, but before they can get married, she will be raped by enemy soldiers. Some of you will build houses, but never get to live in them. If you plant a vineyard, you won't be around long enough to enjoy the first harvest. 31 Your cattle will be killed while you watch, but you won't get to eat any of the meat. Your donkeys and sheep will be stolen from you, and no one will be around to force your enemies to give them back. 32 Your sons and daughters will be dragged off to a foreign country, while you stand there helpless. And even if you watch for them until you go blind, you will never see them again.
33 You will work hard on your farms, but everything you harvest will be eaten by foreigners, who will mistreat you and abuse you for the rest of your life.
34 What you see will be so horrible that you will go insane, 35 and the Lord will punish you from head to toe with boils that never heal.
36 The Lord will let you and your king be taken captive to a country that you and your ancestors have never even heard of, and there you will have to worship idols[c] made of wood and stone. 37 People of nearby countries will shudder when they see your terrible troubles, but they will still make fun of you.
38 You will plant a lot of seed, but gather a small harvest, because locusts[d] will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and work hard at taking care of them, but you won't gather any grapes, much less get any wine, because the vines themselves will be eaten by worms. 40 Even if your olive trees grow everywhere in your country, the olives will fall off before they are ready, and there won't be enough olive oil for combing your hair.[e]
41 Even your children will be taken as prisoners of war.
42 Locusts[f] will eat your crops and strip your trees of leaves and fruit.
43 Foreigners in your towns will become wealthy and powerful, while you become poor and powerless. 44 You will be so short of money that you will have to borrow from those foreigners. They will be the leaders in the community, and you will be the followers.
More Curses for Disobedience
Moses said:
45 Israel, if you don't obey the laws and teachings that the Lord your God is giving you, he will send these curses to chase, attack, and destroy you. 46 Then everyone will look at you and your descendants and realize that the Lord has placed you under a curse.
47 If the Lord makes you wealthy, but you don't joyfully worship and honor him, 48 he will send enemies to attack you and make you their slaves. Then you will live in poverty with nothing to eat, drink, or wear, and your owners will work you to death.
49 Foreigners who speak a strange language will be sent to attack you without warning, just like an eagle swooping down. 50 They won't show any mercy, and they will have no respect for old people or pity for children. 51 They will take your cattle, sheep, goats, grain, wine, and olive oil, then leave you to starve.
52 All over the land that the Lord your God gave you, the enemy army will surround your towns. You may feel safe inside your town walls, but the enemy will tear them down, 53 while you wait in horror. Finally, you will get so hungry that you will eat the sons and daughters that the Lord gave you. 54-55 Because of hunger, a man who had been gentle and kind will eat his own children and refuse to share the meal with his brother or wife or with his other children. 56-57 (B) A woman may have grown up in such luxury that she never had to put a foot on the ground. But times will be so bad that she will secretly eat both her newborn baby and the afterbirth, without sharing any with her husband or her other children.
Disobedience Brings Destruction
Moses said to Israel:
58 You must obey everything in The Book of God's Law. Because if you don't respect the Lord, 59 he will punish you and your descendants with incurable diseases, 60 like those you were so afraid of in Egypt. 61 Remember! If the Lord decides to destroy your nation, he can use any disease or disaster, not just the ones written in The Book of God's Law.
62 There are as many of you now as the stars in the sky, but if you disobey the Lord your God, only a few of you will be left. 63 The Lord is happy to make you successful and to help your nation grow while you conquer the land. But if you disobey him, he will be just as happy to pull you up by your roots.
64 Those of you that survive will be scattered to every nation on earth, and you will have to worship stone and wood idols[g] that never helped you or your ancestors. 65 You will be restless—always longing for home, but never able to return. 66 You will live in constant fear of death. 67 Each morning you will wake up to such terrible sights that you will say, “I wish it were night!” But at night you will be terrified and say, “I wish it were day!”
68 I told you never to go back to Egypt. But now the Lord himself will load you on ships and send you back. Then you will even try to sell yourselves as slaves, but no one will be interested.
Footnotes
- 28.5 bread: The main food of the Israelites.
- 28.17 bread: The main food of the Israelites.
- 28.36 have to worship idols: It was sometimes thought that only the gods of a country could be worshiped within the borders of that country.
- 28.38 locusts: A type of grasshopper that comes in swarms and causes great damage to plant life.
- 28.40 olive oil … hair: Olive oil was used for combing the hair.
- 28.42 Locusts: See the note at 28.38.
- 28.64 have to worship … idols: See the note at 28.36.
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025.
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