⁶ Has anyone here just planted a vineyard but not yet eaten any of its fruit? If so, you may go home! You might die in battle, and someone else would eat the first fruit.

²³ “When you enter the land and plant fruit trees, leave the fruit unharvested for the first three years and consider it forbidden.^[a] Do not eat it. ²⁴ In the fourth year the entire crop must be consecrated to the Lord as a celebration of praise. ²⁵ Finally, in the fifth year you may eat the fruit. If you follow this pattern, your harvest will increase. I am the Lord your God.

Blessings for Obedience

28 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. ² You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:

⁷ “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!

⁸ “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

⁹ “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. ¹⁰ Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.

¹¹ “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. ¹² The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. ¹³ If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. ¹⁴ You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

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:

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.