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11 “All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. So the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against you.(A)

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Woe, sinful nation,
    people laden with iniquity,
offspring who do evil,
    children who act corruptly,
who have forsaken the Lord,
    who have despised the Holy One of Israel,
    [[who are utterly estranged!]][a](A)

Why do you seek further beatings?
    Why do you continue to rebel?
The whole head is injured,
    and the whole heart faint.(B)
From the sole of the foot to the head,
    there is no soundness in it,
only bruises and sores
    and bleeding wounds;
they have not been drained or bound up
    or softened with oil.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 1.4 Gk OL lack: Heb adds who are utterly estranged

Warnings against Disobedience

15 “But if you will not obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all his commandments and decrees that I am commanding you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you:(A)

16 “Cursed shall you be 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, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock.

19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.

20 “The Lord will send upon you disaster, panic, and frustration in everything you attempt to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds with which you have forsaken me.(B) 21 The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until it has consumed you off the land that you are entering to possess.(C) 22 The Lord will afflict you with consumption, fever, inflammation, with fiery heat and drought,[a] and with blight and mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.(D) 23 The sky over your head shall be bronze and the earth under you iron.(E) 24 The Lord will change the rain of your land into powder, and only dust shall come down upon you from the sky until you are destroyed.

25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out against them one way and flee before them seven ways. You shall become an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.(F) 26 Your corpses shall be food for every bird of the air and animal of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away.(G) 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, scurvy, and itch, of which you cannot be healed.(H) 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind; 29 you shall grope about at noon as blind people grope in darkness, but you shall be unable to find your way, and you shall be continually abused and robbed, without anyone to help.(I) 30 You shall become engaged to a woman, but another man shall lie with her. You shall build a house but not live in it. You shall plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit.(J) 31 Your ox shall be butchered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Your donkey shall be stolen in front of you and shall not be restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies without anyone to help you. 32 Your sons and daughters shall be given to another people while you look on; you will strain your eyes looking for them all day but be powerless to do anything.(K) 33 A people whom you do not know shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors; you shall be continually abused and crushed(L) 34 and driven mad by the sight that your eyes shall see. 35 The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.(M) 36 The Lord will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone.(N) 37 You shall become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you.(O)

38 “You shall carry much seed into the field but shall gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.(P) 39 You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. 41 You shall have sons and daughters, but they shall not remain yours, for they shall go into captivity.(Q) 42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground the cicada shall take over.(R) 43 Aliens residing among you shall ascend above you higher and higher, while you shall descend lower and lower.(S) 44 They shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to them; they shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.(T)

45 “All these curses shall come upon you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God by observing the commandments and the decrees that he commanded you.(U) 46 They shall be among you and your descendants as a sign and a portent forever.

47 “Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and with gladness of heart for the abundance of everything,(V) 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lack of everything. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.(W) 49 The Lord will bring a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand,(X) 50 a grim-faced nation showing no respect to the old or favor to the young. 51 It shall consume the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed, leaving you neither grain, wine, and oil nor the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock, until it has made you perish.(Y) 52 It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout your land; it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout the land that the Lord your God has given you.(Z) 53 In the desperate straits to which the enemy siege reduces you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you.(AA) 54 Even the most refined and gentle of men among you will begrudge food to his own brother, to the wife whom he embraces, and to the last of his remaining children, 55 giving to none of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because nothing else remains to him, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in all your towns. 56 She who is the most refined and gentle among you, so gentle and refined that she does not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge food to the husband whom she embraces, to her own son, and to her own daughter,(AB) 57 begrudging even the afterbirth that comes out from between her thighs and the children that she bears, because she is eating them in secret for lack of anything else, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in your towns.

58 “If you do not diligently observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, fearing this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God,(AC) 59 then the Lord will overwhelm both you and your offspring with severe and lasting afflictions and grievous and lasting maladies. 60 He will bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were in dread, and they shall cling to you.(AD) 61 Every other malady and affliction, even though not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will inflict on you until you are destroyed.(AE) 62 Although once you were as numerous as the stars in heaven, you shall be left few in number because you did not obey the Lord your God.(AF) 63 And just as the Lord took delight in making you prosperous and numerous, so the Lord will take delight in bringing you to ruin and destruction; you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to possess.(AG) 64 The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.(AH) 65 Among those nations you shall find no ease, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a languishing spirit.(AI) 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; night and day you shall be in dread, with no assurance of your life. 67 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 the sights that your eyes shall see.(AJ) 68 The Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, by a route that I promised you would never see again, and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

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Footnotes

  1. 28.22 Gk Syr Tg: MT the sword

Why then has this people[a] turned away
    in perpetual faithlessness?
They have held fast to deceit;
    they have refused to return.(A)
I have given heed and listened,
    but they do not speak honestly;
no one repents of wickedness,
    saying, “What have I done!”
All of them turn to their own course
    like a horse plunging headlong into battle.(B)
Even the stork in the heavens
    knows its times,
and the turtledove, swallow, and crane[b]
    observe the time of their coming,
but my people do not know
    the ordinance of the Lord.(C)

How can you say, “We are wise,
    and the law of the Lord is with us,”
when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie?(D)
The wise shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed and taken;
since they have rejected the word of the Lord,
    what wisdom is in them?(E)
10 Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
    everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. 8.5 Heb ms Gk: MT this people, Jerusalem,
  2. 8.7 Meaning of Heb uncertain

26 Its priests have done violence to my teaching and have profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.(A) 27 Its officials within it are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain.(B) 28 Its prophets have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, “Thus says the Lord God,” when the Lord has not spoken.(C) 29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy and have extorted from the alien without justice.(D) 30 And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one.(E) 31 Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath; I have returned their conduct upon their heads, says the Lord God.(F)

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26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all those with shaved temples who live in the desert. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.(A)

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18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah alone.(A)

19 Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. 20 The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel; he punished them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had banished them from his presence.(B)

21 When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin.(C) 22 The people of Israel continued in all the sins that Jeroboam committed; they did not depart from them 23 until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had foretold through all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

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19 The Lord saw it and was jealous;[a]
    he spurned[b] his sons and daughters.(A)
20 He said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
    I will see what their end will be,
for they are a perverse generation,
    children in whom there is no faithfulness.(B)
21 They made me jealous with what is no god,
    provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
    provoke them with a foolish nation.(C)
22 For a fire is kindled by my anger
    and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase
    and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.(D)
23 I will heap disasters upon them,
    spend my arrows against them:(E)
24 wasting hunger,
    burning consumption,
    bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
    with venom of things crawling in the dust.(F)
25 In the street the sword shall bereave,
    and in the chambers terror
for young man and woman alike,
    nursing child and old gray head.(G)
26 I said, “I will make an end of them[c]
    and blot out the memory of them from humankind,”(H)
27 but I feared provocation by the enemy,
    for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, “Our hand is triumphant;
    it was not the Lord who did all this.” ’(I)

28 They are a nation void of sense;
    there is no understanding in them.
29 If they were wise, they would understand this;
    they would discern what their end would be.(J)
30 How could one have routed a thousand
    and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
    the Lord had given them up?(K)
31 Indeed, their rock is not like our Rock;
    our enemies are fools.[d](L)
32 Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,
    from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison;
    their clusters are bitter;
33 their wine is the poison of serpents,
    the cruel venom of asps.(M)

34 Is not this laid up in store with me,
    sealed up in my treasuries,(N)
35 for the day of vengeance[e] and recompense,
    for the time when their foot shall slip?
Because the day of their calamity is at hand;
    their doom comes swiftly.(O)

36 Indeed, the Lord will vindicate his people,
    have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
    neither bond nor free remaining.(P)
37 Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods,
    the rock in which they took refuge,(Q)
38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices
    and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you;
    let them be your protection!

39 See now that I, even I, am he;
    there is no god besides me.
I kill, and I make alive;
    I wound, and I heal;
    and no one can deliver from my hand.(R)
40 For I lift up my hand to heaven
    and swear, As I live forever,
41 when I whet my flashing sword
    and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
    and will repay those who hate me.(S)
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
    and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
    from the long-haired enemy.’(T)

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Footnotes

  1. 32.19 Q mss Gk: MT lacks was jealous
  2. 32.19 Cn: Heb he spurned because of provocation
  3. 32.26 Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
  4. 32.31 Gk: Heb judges
  5. 32.35 Sam Gk: MT vengeance is mine

17 My anger will be kindled against them on that day. I will forsake them and hide my face from them; they will become easy prey, and many terrible troubles will come upon them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these troubles come upon us because our God is not in our midst?’(A) 18 On that day I will surely hide my face on account of all the evil they have done by turning to other gods.

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17 But if your heart turns away and you do not hear but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall certainly perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.(A) 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live,(B)

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20 the Lord will be unwilling to pardon them, for then the Lord’s anger and passion will smoke against them. All the curses written in this book will descend on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven.(A) 21 The Lord will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.(B) 22 The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who comes from a distant country, will see the devastation of that land and the afflictions with which the Lord has afflicted it(C) 23 all its soil burned out by sulfur and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to support any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his fierce anger(D) 24 they and indeed all the nations will wonder, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused this great display of anger?’(E) 25 They will conclude, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26 They turned and served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them; 27 so the anger of the Lord was kindled against that land, bringing on it every curse written in this book. 28 The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, fury, and great wrath and cast them into another land, as is now the case.’(F) 29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law.

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15 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who makes an idol or casts an image, anything abhorrent to the Lord, the work of an artisan, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall respond, saying, ‘Amen!’(A)

16 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who dishonors father or mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(B)

17 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who moves a neighbor’s boundary marker.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(C)

18 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind person on the road.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(D)

19 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who deprives an alien, an orphan, or a widow of justice.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(E)

20 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his father’s wife, because he has violated his father’s rights.’[a] All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(F)

21 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who lies with any animal.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(G)

22 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(H)

23 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his mother-in-law.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(I)

24 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who strikes down a neighbor in secret.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(J)

25 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(K)

26 “ ‘Cursed be anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by observing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’(L)

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Footnotes

  1. 27.20 Heb uncovered his father’s skirt

Penalties for Disobedience

14 “But if you will not obey me and do not observe all these commandments,(A) 15 if you spurn my statutes and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments and you break my covenant, 16 I in turn will do this to you: I will bring terror on you, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.(B) 17 I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down by your enemies; your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee though no one pursues you.(C) 18 And if in spite of this you will not obey me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins. 19 I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper.(D) 20 Your strength shall be spent to no purpose: your land shall not yield its produce, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.(E)

21 “If you continue hostile to me and will not obey me, I will continue to plague you sevenfold for your sins. 22 I will let loose wild animals against you, and they shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock; they shall make you few in number, and your roads shall be deserted.(F)

23 “If in spite of these punishments you have not turned back to me but continue hostile to me,(G) 24 then I, too, will continue hostile to you: I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.(H) 25 I will bring the sword against you, executing vengeance for the covenant, and if you withdraw into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into enemy hands.(I) 26 When I cut off your supply of bread,[a] ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven, and they shall dole out your bread by weight, and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.(J)

27 “But if, despite this, you disobey me and continue hostile to me, 28 I will continue hostile to you in fury; I in turn will punish you myself sevenfold for your sins. 29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.(K) 30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols. I will abhor you.(L) 31 I will lay your cities waste, will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing odors.(M) 32 I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to settle in it shall be appalled at it.(N) 33 And you I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword against you; your land shall be a desolation and your cities a waste.(O)

34 “Then the land shall enjoy[b] its Sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy[c] its Sabbath years.(P) 35 As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were living on it. 36 And as for those of you who survive, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall though no one pursues.(Q) 37 They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though no one pursues, and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies.(R) 38 You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall devour you.(S) 39 And those of you who survive shall languish in the land of your enemies because of their iniquities; they shall also languish because of the iniquities of their ancestors.(T)

40 “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors—their treachery against me and also their continued hostility to me,(U) 41 so that I in turn was hostile to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if, then, their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,(V) 42 then will I remember my covenant with Jacob; I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.(W) 43 For the land shall be deserted by them and enjoy[d] its Sabbath years by lying desolate without them, while they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they dared to spurn my ordinances, and they abhorred my statutes.(X) 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them or abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God,(Y) 45 but I will remember in their favor the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.”(Z)

46 These are the statutes and ordinances and laws that the Lord established between himself and the Israelites on Mount Sinai through Moses.(AA)

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Footnotes

  1. 26.26 Heb staff of bread
  2. 26.34 Or make up for
  3. 26.34 Or make up for
  4. 26.43 Or make up for