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Deuteronomy 28
Lexham English Bible

28 “And it will happen that if you indeed listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to diligently observe[a] all his commandments that I am commanding you today,[b] then Yahweh your God will set you above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all of these blessings shall come upon you, and they shall have an effect on you[c] if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God:

3 “You will be blessed in the city, and you will be blessed in the field.

4 “Blessed will be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your livestock, the calf of your cattle and the lambs of your flock.[d]

5 “Blessed will be your basket and your kneading trough.

6 “Blessed will you be when you come in and blessed will you be when you go out.[e]

7 “Yahweh will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you;[f] on one road[g] they shall come out against you, but on seven roads[h] they shall flee before you.[i] 8 Yahweh will command concerning you[j] the blessing to be in your barns and in all your endeavors;[k] and he will bless you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you. 9 Yahweh will establish you for himself[l] as a holy people as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and you walk in his ways. 10 And all of the peoples of the earth shall see that by the name of Yahweh you are called,[m] and they shall fear you.[n] 11 And Yahweh will make you successful and prosperous,[o] in the fruit of your womb and on the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors[p] to give to you. 12 Yahweh shall open for you his rich[q] storehouse, even the heavens, to give the rain for[r] your land in its time and to bless all of the work of your hand, and you will lend to many nations; you will not borrow from them. 13 And Yahweh shall make you[s] as head and not the tail, and you shall be only at the top of the nations, and you shall not be at the bottom, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you today[t] and diligently observe them.[u] 14 And you shall not turn aside from any of[v] the words that I am commanding you today[w] to the right or left by going after other gods to serve them.

15 “And then[x] if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God by diligently observing[y] all of his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today,[z] then all of these curses shall come upon you, and they shall overtake you:

16 “You shall[aa] be cursed in the city, and you shall be cursed in the field.

17 “Your basket shall be cursed and your kneading trough.

18 “The fruit of your womb shall be cursed and the fruit of you ground, the calves of your cattle and the lambs of your flock.

19 “You shall be cursed when you come in,[ab] and you shall be cursed when you go out.[ac]

20 “Yahweh will send upon you[ad] the curse,[ae] the panic,[af] and the threat[ag] in everything that you undertake,[ah] until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly[ai] because of[aj] the evil of your deeds in that[ak] you have forsaken me. 21 Yahweh will cause the plague to cling to you until it consumes you[al] from the land that you are going to,[am] to take possession of it. 22 Yahweh will afflict you with the wasting diseases and with the fever and with the inflammation and with the scorching heat and with the sword[an] and with the blight and with the mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish.[ao] 23 And your heavens that are over your heads shall be like bronze, and the earth that is under you shall be like iron. 24 Yahweh will change the rain of your land to fine dust and to sand; from the heaven it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.[ap]

25 “Yahweh shall cause you to be defeated before[aq] your enemies; on one road you shall go against[ar] them,[as] but you will flee on seven roads before[at] them,[au] and you shall become a thing of horror to all of the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And your dead bodies shall be as food for all of the birds of the heaven and to the animals of the earth, and there shall not be anyone to frighten them away.[av]

27 “Yahweh shall afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scurvy and with the skin rash that cannot be healed.[aw] 28 Yahweh shall afflict you with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart. 29 And you shall be groping at noon just as the blind person gropes in the dark, and you shall not succeed in finding your way, and you shall only be abused and robbed all the time,[ax] and there will not be anyone who will rescue you. [ay] 30 You shall become engaged to a woman, but another man shall sleep[az] with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not live in it; a vineyard you shall plant, but you shall not enjoy it. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, and you shall not eat it; your donkey shall be stolen right before you,[ba] and it shall not be returned to you; your sheep and your goats shall be given to your enemies, and there shall not be anyone who rescues you.[bb] 32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to other people, and you will be looking on[bc] longingly[bd] for[be] them all day, but you will be powerless to do anything.[bf] 33 A people that you do not know shall consume the harvest of your land and all your labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.[bg] 34 You shall become mad because of what your eyes shall see.[bh] 35 Yahweh shall strike you with grievous boils on the knees and on the upper thighs from which you will not be able to be healed,[bi] from the sole of your foot and up to your crown. 36 Yahweh will bring you and your king whom you set up over you to a nation that you or your ancestors[bj] have not known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone. 37 And you will become a horror and a proverb and ridicule among all the peoples where Yahweh drives you there.

38 “You shall carry out much seed to the field, but you shall gather little produce, for the locust shall devour it. 39 You shall plant vineyards and you shall dress[bk] them, but you shall not drink wine and you shall not gather grapes, for the worm shall eat it.[bl] 40 There shall be olive trees for you in all of your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself, for your olives[bm] shall drop off. 41 You shall bear sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours,[bn] for they shall go into captivity. 42 The cricket shall take possession of all your trees and the fruit of your ground. 43 The alien that is in your midst shall ascend over you, higher and higher, but you shall go down lower and lower. 44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, but you shall be the tail.

45 “And all of these curses shall come over you, and they shall pursue you, and they shall overtake you until you are destroyed,[bo] because you did not listen[bp] to the voice of Yahweh your God, by observing[bq] his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. 46 And they shall be among you as a sign and as a wonder and among your offspring forever.[br]

47 “Because[bs] of the fact that you did not serve Yahweh your God with joy and with gladness of heart for the abundance of everything, 48 then you shall serve your enemies, whom Yahweh will send against you under conditions of famine, in thirst, in nakedness, and in a lack of everything; and he shall place[bt] a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.[bu] 49 Yahweh will raise up against you a nation from far off, from the end of the earth, attacking as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you will not understand,[bv] 50 a grim-faced nation[bw] who does not show respect[bx] to the old and the young and does not show pity. 51 And it[by] shall consume the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed,[bz] and who will not leave for you any grain, wine, and olive oil, calves of your herds,[ca] and lambs of[cb] your flock until it has destroyed you.[cc] 52 And it shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls fall,[cd] which you are trusting in[ce] throughout your land;[cf] and it shall besiege you in all of your towns in all of your land that Yahweh your God has given to you. 53 And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and your daughters, whom Yahweh your God gave to you, during the siege and during the distress[cg] your enemy inflicts upon you. 54 The most refined and the very sensitive[ch] man among you shall be mean with his brother[ci] and against his beloved wife[cj] and against the rest[ck] of his children that he has left over, 55 by refraining from giving[cl] to even one of them any of the meat of his children that he eats, because there is not anything that is left over for him during the siege and distress[cm] that your enemy inflicts upon you. 56 The most refined and the most delicate woman among you, who shall[cn] not venture to put the sole of her foot on the ground from being so delicate and from such gentleness, shall be mean to her beloved husband[co] and against her son and against her daughter, 57 and even concerning her afterbirth that goes out[cp] from between her feet and also concerning her children that she bears, because she eats them for lack of anything in secret during the siege and during the distress[cq] that your enemy inflicts upon her in your towns.[cr]

58 “If you do not diligently observe[cs] all the words of this law written in this scroll by revering this glorious and awesome name, Yahweh your God, 59 then Yahweh shall overwhelm you with your plagues and the plagues of your offspring, severe plagues and lasting illnesses, grievous and enduring. 60 And he shall bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt concerning which you were in dread[ct] because of them.[cu] 61 Also any illness and any plague[cv] that is not written in the scroll of this law, he shall bring them, Yahweh, upon you until you are destroyed. 62 And you shall remain only a few people[cw] in place of the fact you were formerly as the stars of heaven as far as number is concerned, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God. 63 And then[cx] as Yahweh delighted over you to make you prosperous[cy] to make you numerous, so Yahweh shall delight over you to exterminate you[cz] and to destroy you, and so you shall be plucked from the land that you are going there to take possession of it. 64 And Yahweh shall scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth up to the other end of the earth, and there you shall serve other gods that you have not known nor[da] your ancestors,[db] gods of wood and stone. 65 And among these nations you shall not find rest, and there shall not be a resting place for the sole of your foot, and Yahweh shall give you there an anxious heart and a weakening of eyes[dc] and a languishing of your inner self.[dd] 66 And your life shall hang in doubt before you,[de] and you shall be startled[df] night and day, and you shall not be confident of your life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it was evening!’[dg] and in the evening you shall say ‘If only it was morning!’[dh] because of the dread of your heart that you shall feel, and because of the sight of your eyes that you shall see. 68 And Yahweh shall bring you back to Egypt in ships by the route that I promised[di] to you that ‘You shall not see it again!’[dj] And you shall sell yourself there to your enemies as slaves and as female slaves, but there will not be a buyer.”

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 28:1 Literally “to observe to do”
  2. Deuteronomy 28:1 Literally “the day”
  3. Deuteronomy 28:2 Literally “they shall overtake you”
  4. Deuteronomy 28:4 Literally “what is dropped of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks”
  5. Deuteronomy 28:6 Literally “in/at your coming and you will be blessed in/at your going out”
  6. Deuteronomy 28:7 Literally “the ones rising against you being defeated to the face of you”
  7. Deuteronomy 28:7 Or “way”
  8. Deuteronomy 28:7 Or “ways”
  9. Deuteronomy 28:7 Literally “to the face of you”
  10. Deuteronomy 28:8 Literally “with you”
  11. Deuteronomy 28:8 Literally “in all of the sending forth of your hand”
  12. Deuteronomy 28:9 Literally “to/for him”
  13. Deuteronomy 28:10 Literally “that the name of Yahweh is called/assigned upon you”
  14. Deuteronomy 28:10 Literally “they shall be afraid/fearful from you”
  15. Deuteronomy 28:11 Literally “Yahweh will cause for you goodness”
  16. Deuteronomy 28:11 Or “fathers”
  17. Deuteronomy 28:12 Literally “good”
  18. Deuteronomy 28:12 Hebrew “of”
  19. Deuteronomy 28:13 Literally “place/set you up”
  20. Deuteronomy 28:13 Literally “the day”
  21. Deuteronomy 28:13 Literally “to observe them and to do them”
  22. Deuteronomy 28:14 Literally “all of”
  23. Deuteronomy 28:14 Literally “the day”
  24. Deuteronomy 28:15 Literally “and it will happen”
  25. Deuteronomy 28:15 Literally “to observe and to do”
  26. Deuteronomy 28:15 Literally “the day”
  27. Deuteronomy 28:16 All of these curses have a future orientation that points to Israel in the land of Canaan
  28. Deuteronomy 28:19 Literally “at/in your coming”
  29. Deuteronomy 28:19 Literally “at/in your going out”
  30. Deuteronomy 28:20 Others translate as a wish: “may Yahweh send upon you …”
  31. Deuteronomy 28:20 These words are translated variously, e.g., “starvation,” “thirst,” “rebuke/dysentery” (NEB) or “curses,” “confusion,” “frustration” (NLT)
  32. Deuteronomy 28:20 Or “confusion”
  33. Deuteronomy 28:20 Or “rebuke”
  34. Deuteronomy 28:20 Literally “in all the sending out of your hand that you do”
  35. Deuteronomy 28:20 Literally “until your to be destroyed and until your to perish quickly”
  36. Deuteronomy 28:20 Literally “from the face of the evil of your deeds”
  37. Deuteronomy 28:20 Literally “which”
  38. Deuteronomy 28:21 Literally “it to consume to”
  39. Deuteronomy 28:21 Hebrew “to there”
  40. Deuteronomy 28:22 Others translate “drought” (NLT, NEB)
  41. Deuteronomy 28:22 Literally “until your/you to perish”
  42. Deuteronomy 28:24 Literally “until your being destroyed”
  43. Deuteronomy 28:25 Literally “to the face of”
  44. Deuteronomy 28:25 Literally “to/toward”
  45. Deuteronomy 28:25 Hebrew “him”
  46. Deuteronomy 28:25 Literally “to the face of”
  47. Deuteronomy 28:25 Hebrew “him”
  48. Deuteronomy 28:26 Literally “one causing fright to them”
  49. Deuteronomy 28:27 Literally “the skin rash that not it is able it to be healed”
  50. Deuteronomy 28:29 Literally “all the days”
  51. Deuteronomy 28:29 Literally “one who delivers/rescues you”
  52. Deuteronomy 28:30 Or “ravish/violate”
  53. Deuteronomy 28:31 Literally “to the face of you”
  54. Deuteronomy 28:31 Literally “there shall not be for you one who rescues”
  55. Deuteronomy 28:32 Literally “your eyes will see/look”
  56. Deuteronomy 28:32 Literally “wearing out”
  57. Deuteronomy 28:32 Hebrew “to”
  58. Deuteronomy 28:32 Literally “but there will not be for power of your hand”
  59. Deuteronomy 28:33 Literally “all of the days”
  60. Deuteronomy 28:34 Literally “from/by the sight of your eyes”
  61. Deuteronomy 28:35 Literally “which not you are able to heal”
  62. Deuteronomy 28:36 Or “fathers”
  63. Deuteronomy 28:39 Or “cultivate”
  64. Deuteronomy 28:39 That is, the produce
  65. Deuteronomy 28:40 Hebrew “olive”
  66. Deuteronomy 28:41 Literally “for you”
  67. Deuteronomy 28:45 Literally “until you to be destroyed”
  68. Deuteronomy 28:45 Literally “not you listened”
  69. Deuteronomy 28:45 Literally “to observe”
  70. Deuteronomy 28:46 Literally “until eternity,” but not in a timeless, philosophic sense
  71. Deuteronomy 28:47 Literally “Under”
  72. Deuteronomy 28:48 Literally “give”
  73. Deuteronomy 28:48 Literally “until his destroying of you”
  74. Deuteronomy 28:49 Literally “a nation who not you will understand its language”
  75. Deuteronomy 28:50 Literally “a nation fierce/determined of face”
  76. Deuteronomy 28:50 Literally “who not lifts up faces”
  77. Deuteronomy 28:51 That is, the invading nation
  78. Deuteronomy 28:51 Literally “until your destroying”
  79. Deuteronomy 28:51 Literally “what is dropped of your herds”
  80. Deuteronomy 28:51 Literally “the offspring of small animals”
  81. Deuteronomy 28:51 Literally “until his to destroy you”
  82. Deuteronomy 28:52 Literally “until the coming down of your walls, high and fortified”
  83. Deuteronomy 28:52 Hebrew “in them,” which is redundant
  84. Deuteronomy 28:52 Literally “in all of your land”
  85. Deuteronomy 28:53 Literally “in siege and in distress”
  86. Deuteronomy 28:54 Or “kindly disposed”
  87. Deuteronomy 28:54 Literally “shall be bad/evil his eye against his brother”
  88. Deuteronomy 28:54 Literally “against the wife of his lap”
  89. Deuteronomy 28:54 Or “remainder”
  90. Deuteronomy 28:55 Literally “from giving”
  91. Deuteronomy 28:55 Literally “in the siege and distress”
  92. Deuteronomy 28:56 Or “would”
  93. Deuteronomy 28:56 Literally “shall be bad her eye against the husband of her lap”
  94. Deuteronomy 28:57 Literally “the going out”
  95. Deuteronomy 28:57 Literally “in the siege and in the distress”
  96. Deuteronomy 28:57 Literally “gates”
  97. Deuteronomy 28:58 Literally “you observe to do”
  98. Deuteronomy 28:60 Literally “you dreaded”
  99. Deuteronomy 28:60 Literally “from their presence”
  100. Deuteronomy 28:61 Or “each illness and each plague”
  101. Deuteronomy 28:62 Literally “with people of few”
  102. Deuteronomy 28:63 Literally “And it will happen”
  103. Deuteronomy 28:63 Literally “to do good with you”
  104. Deuteronomy 28:63 Or “to cause you to perish”
  105. Deuteronomy 28:64 Hebrew “and”
  106. Deuteronomy 28:64 Or “your fathers”
  107. Deuteronomy 28:65 Or “a failure of eyes”
  108. Deuteronomy 28:65 Or “soul”
  109. Deuteronomy 28:66 Literally “they shall be your life hanging for you in front”
  110. Deuteronomy 28:66 Or “in fear”
  111. Deuteronomy 28:67 Literally “Who shall give evening?”
  112. Deuteronomy 28:67 Literally “Who shall give morning?”
  113. Deuteronomy 28:68 Literally “spoke”
  114. Deuteronomy 28:68 Literally “you shall not do again further to see it/her”
Close NET

Deuteronomy 28
New English Translation

The Covenant Blessings

28 “If you indeed[a] obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving[b] you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth. 2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance[c] if you obey the Lord your God: 3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field.[d] 4 Your children[e] will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.[f] 7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack[g] you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction[h] but flee from you in seven different directions. 8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do—yes, he will bless you in the land he[i] is giving you. 9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments[j] and obey him.[k] 10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord,[l] and they will respect you. 11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children,[m] the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land that he[n] promised your ancestors[o] he would give you. 12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do;[p] you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. 13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his[q] commandments that I am urging[r] you today to be careful to do. 14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving[s] you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship[t] them.

Curses as Reversal of Blessings

15 “But if you ignore[u] the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force:[v] 16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. 17 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. 18 Your children[w] will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.[x]

Curses by Disease and Drought

20 “The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you[y] in everything you undertake[z] until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me.[aa] 21 The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases[ab] until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 22 He[ac] will afflict you with weakness,[ad] fever, inflammation, infection,[ae] sword,[af] blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. 23 The[ag] sky[ah] above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

Curses by Defeat and Deportation

25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror[ai] to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.[aj] 29 You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do;[ak] you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you. 30 You will be engaged to a woman, and another man will rape[al] her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes, but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies, and there will be no one to save you. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it.[am] 33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives. 34 You will go insane from seeing all this. 35 The Lord will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils—from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 36 The Lord will force you and your king[an] whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there. 37 You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.

The Curse of Reversed Status

38 “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe.[ao] 41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity. 42 Whirring locusts[ap] will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil. 43 The resident foreigners[aq] who reside among you will become higher and higher over you, and you will become lower and lower. 44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them; they will become the head, and you will become the tail!

45 “All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given[ar] you. 46 These curses[as] will be a perpetual sign and wonder with reference to you and your descendants.[at]

The Curse of Military Siege

47 “Because you have not served the Lord your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have, 48 instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty[au] you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. They[av] will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you. 49 The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth[aw] as the eagle flies,[ax] a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young. 51 They[ay] will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds,[az] or lambs of your flocks[ba] until they have destroyed you. 52 They will besiege all of your villages[bb] until all of your high and fortified walls collapse—those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 53 You will then eat your own offspring,[bc] the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege[bd] by which your enemies will constrict you. 54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict[be] you in your villages. 56 Likewise, the most[bf] tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness,[bg] will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth[bh] and her newborn children[bi] (since she has nothing else),[bj] because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

The Curse of Covenant Termination

58 “If you refuse to obey[bk] all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will increase your punishments and those of your descendants—great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt[bl] that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you.[bm] 61 Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments,[bn] until you have perished. 62 There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky,[bo] because you will have disobeyed[bp] the Lord your God. 63 This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, so he[bq] will also take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess. 64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 65 Among those nations you will have no rest, nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next.[br] 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 28:1 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”
  2. Deuteronomy 28:1 tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).
  3. Deuteronomy 28:2 tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”
  4. Deuteronomy 28:3 tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.
  5. Deuteronomy 28:4 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).
  6. Deuteronomy 28:6 sn Come in…go out. To “come in” and “go out” is a figure of speech (merism) indicating all of life and its activities.
  7. Deuteronomy 28:7 tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).
  8. Deuteronomy 28:7 tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).
  9. Deuteronomy 28:8 tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.
  10. Deuteronomy 28:9 tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.
  11. Deuteronomy 28:9 tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
  12. Deuteronomy 28:10 tn Heb “the name of the Lord is called over you.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership; see 2 Sam 12:28; Isa 4:1, as well as BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph. 2.d.(4).
  13. Deuteronomy 28:11 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”
  14. Deuteronomy 28:11 tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.
  15. Deuteronomy 28:11 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).
  16. Deuteronomy 28:12 tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”
  17. Deuteronomy 28:13 tn Heb “the Lord your God’s.” See note on “he” in 28:8.
  18. Deuteronomy 28:13 tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”
  19. Deuteronomy 28:14 tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”
  20. Deuteronomy 28:14 tn Heb “in order to serve.”
  21. Deuteronomy 28:15 tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”
  22. Deuteronomy 28:15 tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”
  23. Deuteronomy 28:18 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).
  24. Deuteronomy 28:19 sn See note on the similar expression in v. 6.
  25. Deuteronomy 28:20 tn Heb “the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke” (NASB and NIV similar); NRSV “disaster, panic, and frustration.”
  26. Deuteronomy 28:20 tn Heb “in all the stretching out of your hand.”
  27. Deuteronomy 28:20 tc For the MT first person common singular suffix (“me”), the LXX reads either “Lord” (Lucian) or third person masculine singular suffix (“him”; various codices). The MT’s more difficult reading probably represents the original text.tn Heb “the evil of your doings wherein you have forsaken me”; CEV “all because you rejected the Lord.”
  28. Deuteronomy 28:21 tn Heb “will cause pestilence to cling to you.”
  29. Deuteronomy 28:22 tn Heb “The Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.
  30. Deuteronomy 28:22 tn Or perhaps “consumption” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). The term is from a verbal root that indicates a weakening of one’s physical strength (cf. NAB “wasting”; NIV, NLT “wasting disease”).
  31. Deuteronomy 28:22 tn Heb “hot fever”; NIV “scorching heat.”
  32. Deuteronomy 28:22 tn Or “drought” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT).
  33. Deuteronomy 28:23 tc The MT reads “Your.” The LXX reads “Heaven will be to you.”
  34. Deuteronomy 28:23 tn Or “heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
  35. Deuteronomy 28:25 tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (zaʿavah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zevaʿah, “terror”).
  36. Deuteronomy 28:28 tn Heb “heart” (so KJV, NASB).
  37. Deuteronomy 28:29 tn Heb “you will not cause your ways to prosper.”
  38. Deuteronomy 28:30 tc For MT reading שָׁגַל (shagal, “ravish; violate”), the Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate presume the less violent שָׁכַב (shakhav, “lie with”). The unexpected counterpart to betrothal here favors the originality of the MT.
  39. Deuteronomy 28:32 tn Heb “and there will be no power in your hand”; NCV “there will be nothing you can do.”
  40. Deuteronomy 28:36 tc The LXX reads the plural “kings.”
  41. Deuteronomy 28:40 tn Heb “your olives will drop off” (נָשַׁל, nashal), referring to the olives dropping off before they ripen. Elsewhere זַיִת (zayit, “olive”) can refer to an olive, the tree branch, the tree, or the grove. Agriculturally it might make the most sense to mean the olive flower (cf. Job 15:33). Whether the flowers drop off without being fertilized, or the olives drop off while unripe, the harvest is lost.
  42. Deuteronomy 28:42 tn The Hebrew term denotes some sort of buzzing or whirring insect; some have understood this to be a type of locust (KJV, NIV, CEV), but other insects have also been suggested: “buzzing insects” (NAB); “the cricket” (NASB); “the cicada” (NRSV).
  43. Deuteronomy 28:43 tn Heb “the foreigner.” This is a collective singular and has therefore been translated as plural; this includes the pronouns in the following verse, which are also singular in the Hebrew text.
  44. Deuteronomy 28:45 tn Heb “commanded”; NAB, NIV, TEV “he gave you.”
  45. Deuteronomy 28:46 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the curses mentioned previously) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  46. Deuteronomy 28:46 tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).
  47. Deuteronomy 28:48 tn Heb “lack of everything.”
  48. Deuteronomy 28:48 tn Heb “he” (also later in this verse). The pronoun is a collective singular referring to the enemies (cf. CEV, NLT). Many translations understand the singular pronoun to refer to the Lord (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV).
  49. Deuteronomy 28:49 tn Heb “from the end of the earth.”
  50. Deuteronomy 28:49 tn Some translations understand this to mean “like an eagle swoops down” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), comparing the swift attack of an eagle to the attack of the Israelites’ enemies.
  51. Deuteronomy 28:51 tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).
  52. Deuteronomy 28:51 tn Heb “increase of herds.”
  53. Deuteronomy 28:51 tn Heb “growth of flocks.”
  54. Deuteronomy 28:52 tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.
  55. Deuteronomy 28:53 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”
  56. Deuteronomy 28:53 tn Heb “siege and stress.”
  57. Deuteronomy 28:55 tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”
  58. Deuteronomy 28:56 tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sphodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.
  59. Deuteronomy 28:56 tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”
  60. Deuteronomy 28:57 tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”
  61. Deuteronomy 28:57 tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”
  62. Deuteronomy 28:57 tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”
  63. Deuteronomy 28:58 tn Heb “If you are not careful to do.”
  64. Deuteronomy 28:60 sn These are the plagues the Lord inflicted on the Egyptians prior to the exodus which, though they did not fall upon the Israelites, must have caused great terror (cf. Exod 15:26).
  65. Deuteronomy 28:60 tn Heb “will cling to you” (so NIV); NLT “will claim you.”
  66. Deuteronomy 28:61 tn The Hebrew term תּוֹרָה (torah) can refer either (1) to the whole Pentateuch or, more likely, (2) to the book of Deuteronomy or even (3) only to this curse section of the covenant text. “Scroll” better reflects the actual document, since “book” conveys the notion of a bound book with pages to the modern English reader. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the book of this law”; NIV, NLT “this Book of the Law”; TEV “this book of God’s laws and teachings.”
  67. Deuteronomy 28:62 tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
  68. Deuteronomy 28:62 tn Heb “have not listened to the voice of.”
  69. Deuteronomy 28:63 tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.
  70. Deuteronomy 28:66 tn Heb “you will not be confident in your life.” The phrase “from one day to the next” is implied by the following verse.
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