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Deuteronomy 28
Legacy Standard Bible

Blessings for Keeping the Commandments

28 “(A)Now it will be, if you diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I am commanding you today, Yahweh your God (B)will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings will come upon you and (C)overtake you if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God:

3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be (D)in the [a]field.

4 “Blessed shall be the [b]offspring of your [c]body and the [d]produce of your ground and the [e]offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.

5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

6 “Blessed shall you be (E)when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 “Yahweh shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be [f]defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. 8 Yahweh will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in (F)all that you send forth your hand to do, and He will bless you in the land which Yahweh your God gives you. 9 (G)Yahweh will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and walk in His ways. 10 So all the peoples of the earth will see that [g](H)you are called by the name of Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you. 11 (I)And Yahweh will make you abound in prosperity, in the [h]offspring of your [i]body and in the [j]offspring of your beast and in the [k]produce of your ground, in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you. 12 Yahweh will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and (J)you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 (K)And Yahweh will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I am commanding you today, to keep and to do, 14 and (L)do not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or to the left, to walk after other gods to serve them.

Curses for Not Keeping the Commandments

15 “(M)But it will be, if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep and to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I am commanding you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16 “(N)Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the [l]field.

17 “(O)Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

18 “(P)Cursed shall be the [m]offspring of your [n]body and the [o]produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.

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

20 “(R)Yahweh will send upon you the curse, confusion, and (S)rebuke, in all [p]that you send forth your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until (T)you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me. 21 (U)Yahweh will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. 22 (V)Yahweh will strike you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with [q]the sword and (W)with scorching wind and with mildew, and they will pursue you until (X)you perish. 23 And [r]the heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24 (Y)Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

25 “(Z)Yahweh shall cause you to be [s]defeated before your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways before them, and you will (AA)become an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 (AB)And your carcasses will be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

27 “(AC)Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with (AD)tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 Yahweh will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart; 29 and you will [t](AE)grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not succeed in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed all your days, with none to save you. 30 (AF)You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; (AG)you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not [u]use its fruit. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey shall be torn away from you and will not be returned to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you will have none to save you. 32 (AH)Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and yearn for them all the day long; but there will be nothing [v]you can do. 33 (AI)A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and crushed all your days. 34 And you shall be driven mad by the sight of what your eyes see. 35 (AJ)Yahweh will strike you on the knees and legs with sore boils, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36 (AK)Yahweh will lead you and your king, whom you set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, (AL)wood and stone. 37 (AM)You shall become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the people where Yahweh drives you.

38 “(AN)You shall bring out much seed to the field, but you will gather in little, for (AO)the locust will consume it. 39 (AP)You shall plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm will devour them. 40 (AQ)You shall have olive trees throughout your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. 41 (AR)You shall become the father of sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. 42 (AS)The cricket shall possess all your trees and the produce of your ground. 43 (AT)The sojourner who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. 44 (AU)He shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; (AV)he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.

45 “So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you (AW)until you are destroyed, because you would not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 And they shall become (AX)a sign and a wonder on you and your seed forever.

47 “(AY)Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with gladness and a merry heart—because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom Yahweh will send against you, (AZ)in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He (BA)will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

49 “(BB)Yahweh will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, (BC)as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose tongue you shall not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance who will (BD)have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. 51 Moreover, it shall eat the [w]offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who also will not allow grain, new wine, or oil, and the increase of your herd or the young of your flock to remain for you until they have caused you to perish. 52 (BE)And it shall besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your gates throughout your land which Yahweh your God has given you. 53 (BF)Then you shall eat the [x]offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom Yahweh your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will [y]oppress you. 54 The man who is [z]refined and very delicate among you [aa]shall be hostile toward his brother and toward the wife [ab]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 which he will eat, since he has nothing else remaining, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will [ac]oppress you in all your gates. 56 (BG)The [ad]refined and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and [ae]refinement, [af]shall be hostile toward the husband [ag]she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, 57 and toward her afterbirth which issues from between her [ah]legs and toward her children whom she bears; for (BH)she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will [ai]oppress you in your gates.

58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law which are written in this book, to [aj](BI)fear this glorious and fearsome (BJ)name, Yahweh your God, 59 then Yahweh will bring wondrous plagues on you and plagues on those who are your seed, even great and enduring plagues, and miserable and enduring sicknesses. 60 (BK)And He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, Yahweh will bring on you (BL)until you are destroyed. 62 Then you shall remain few in number, (BM)whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God. 63 And it will be that as Yahweh (BN)delighted over you to prosper you and multiply you, so Yahweh will (BO)delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be (BP)torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. 64 Moreover, Yahweh will (BQ)scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall (BR)serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. 65 (BS)Moreover, among those nations you shall find no relief, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there (BT)Yahweh will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. 66 So your life shall [ak]hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day and shall not have any faith in your life. 67 (BU)In the morning you shall say, ‘Would that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Would that it were morning!’ because of the dread of your heart which you dread, and because of the sight of your eyes which you will see. 68 And Yahweh will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I spoke to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 28:3 Or country
  2. Deuteronomy 28:4 Lit fruit
  3. Deuteronomy 28:4 Lit womb
  4. Deuteronomy 28:4 Lit fruit
  5. Deuteronomy 28:4 Lit fruit
  6. Deuteronomy 28:7 Lit smitten
  7. Deuteronomy 28:10 Lit the name of Yahweh is called upon you
  8. Deuteronomy 28:11 Lit fruit
  9. Deuteronomy 28:11 Or womb
  10. Deuteronomy 28:11 Lit fruit
  11. Deuteronomy 28:11 Lit fruit
  12. Deuteronomy 28:16 Or country
  13. Deuteronomy 28:18 Lit fruit
  14. Deuteronomy 28:18 Or womb
  15. Deuteronomy 28:18 Lit fruit
  16. Deuteronomy 28:20 Lit the putting forth of your hand which you do
  17. Deuteronomy 28:22 Or drought
  18. Deuteronomy 28:23 Lit your
  19. Deuteronomy 28:25 Lit smitten
  20. Deuteronomy 28:29 Lit be groping
  21. Deuteronomy 28:30 Lit begin it
  22. Deuteronomy 28:32 Lit in the strength of your hand
  23. Deuteronomy 28:51 Lit fruit
  24. Deuteronomy 28:53 Lit fruit
  25. Deuteronomy 28:53 Or distress
  26. Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit tender
  27. Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit his eye shall be evil toward
  28. Deuteronomy 28:54 Lit of his bosom
  29. Deuteronomy 28:55 Or distress
  30. Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit tender
  31. Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit tenderness
  32. Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit her eye shall be evil toward
  33. Deuteronomy 28:56 Lit of her bosom
  34. Deuteronomy 28:57 Lit feet
  35. Deuteronomy 28:57 Or distress
  36. Deuteronomy 28:58 Or reverence
  37. Deuteronomy 28:66 Lit be hung for you in front
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Deuteronomy 28
Evangelical Heritage Version

The Blessings for Obedience

28 If you fully obey the voice of the Lord your God by carefully carrying out all his commandments that I am giving you today, then the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 All of the following blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of the Lord your God:

3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the fields.
4 You will be blessed in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your soil, and in the fruit of your animals: the calves of your cattle and the lambs of your flock.
5 You will be blessed in your basket and in your kneading trough.
6 You will be blessed when you come in, and you will be blessed when you go out.
7 The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. From one direction they will come out against you, but they will flee from you in seven directions.
8 The Lord will command a blessing on you in your storehouses and in regard to every action of your hand, and he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
9 The Lord will establish you as his holy people, just as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and you walk in his ways.
10 Then all the people of the earth will see that the name of the Lord has been proclaimed over you, and they will fear you.
11 The Lord will cause you to be overflowing with good things: with the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your animals, and the fruit of the soil of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.
12 The Lord will open for you his good storehouse, the heavens, by giving rain for your land in its season and by blessing all the work of your hand.
Then you will cause many nations to borrow from you, but you yourself will not borrow.
13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will be only at the top and never at the bottom, if you conscientiously obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today to carry out, 14 and if you do not turn away to the right or to the left from all the words that I am commanding you today, to walk after other gods and serve them.

The Curses for Disobedience

15 If you do not listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do not carefully carry out all of his commandments and statutes that 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 you will be cursed in the fields.
17 You will be cursed in your basket and in your kneading trough.
18 You will be cursed in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your soil, in the calves of your cattle and in the lambs of your flock.
19 You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out.
20 The Lord will send on you a curse and confusion and opposition in every undertaking of your hand that you carry out, until you are destroyed and until you quickly perish, because of the evil you have done by forsaking me.
21 The Lord will cause epidemics to cling to you until he has removed you from your land that you are going to possess.
22 The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with intense heat and with drought,[a] and with blight and with mildew.[b] They will pursue you until you perish.
23 The skies over your head will become bronze, and the earth under you will become iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your land to dust. From the heavens it will come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. In one direction you will go out against them, but in seven directions you will flee from them, and you will become a horrible sight to all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 Your dead bodies will become food for every bird of the sky and every animal of the earth, and there will not be anyone to scare them away.
27 The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, scabs, and itch, from which you cannot be healed.
28 The Lord will strike you with insanity and with blindness and with a confused mind.
29 You will grope at noon as a blind person gropes in the dark, and you will not prosper in your ways.
You will be cheated and robbed all the time, and there will be no one to rescue you.
30 You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her.
You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not enjoy its fruit.
31 Your ox will be slaughtered in front of your eyes, but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be seized right in front of your face, and it will not return to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, but there will be no one to help you.
32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will grow weak as you look longingly for them all day long, but your hands will be powerless.
33 A people that you do not know will eat what your soil and all your work produces.
You will be squeezed and crushed throughout the days 34 until you go insane from the sights that your eyes will see.
35 The Lord will strike you on your knees and legs with distressing boils from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

36 The Lord will lead you and the king, whom you will set over you, to a nation that you and your fathers have not known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

37 You will become an object of horror, the subject of proverbs, and the butt of sarcastic taunts among all the people to whom the Lord will send you.

38 You will take a lot of seed out to the field, but you will harvest little, because locusts will finish it off.

39 You will plant and tend vineyards, but you will not drink the wine and store it, because worms will eat them up.

40 You will have olive trees covering your whole property, but you will not anoint yourselves with oil, because your olives will fall off the trees.

41 You will produce sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.

42 Locusts will take possession of all of your trees and all the fruit of your land.

43 The alien who resides among you will ascend higher and higher over you, and you will descend lower and lower. 44 He will cause you to borrow, but you will not cause him to borrow. He will become the head, and you will become the tail.

45 All of these curses will come upon you, and they will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. 46 They will be signs and wonders against you and your descendants perpetually.

47 Because you would not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness in your heart flowing from the abundance of everything he gave you, 48 you will serve your enemies that the Lord will unleash against you in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and a lack of everything, and he will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

49 He will bring a nation from far away against you, from the end of the earth, as fast as an eagle soars through the air, a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a fierce nation that does not show any regard for the old or any mercy to the young. 51 That nation will eat the produce from your animals and the fruit from your soil until you are destroyed. It will leave you no grain, no new wine, no fresh oil, no calves of your cattle or lambs from your flock until it has caused you to perish. 52 That nation will besiege you in all of your cities until the high, fortified walls that you were trusting collapse throughout your land. When that nation besieges you in all of the cities throughout your whole land that the Lord your God is giving you, 53 you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, because of the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.

54 The most sensitive and refined man among you will be so begrudging against his brother, against the wife he embraces, and against any of his children who still survive, 55 that he will not give to any one of them some of the flesh of his children that he is eating, because then he would have nothing left for himself, because of the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you in all of your cities.

56 The most sensitive and refined woman among you, so refined and sensitive that she would not venture to touch the sole of her foot to the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter 57 the afterbirth that goes out from between her legs and the babies that she gives birth to, because she plans to eat them secretly since she has nothing else, as a result of the siege and the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in all of your cities.

58 If you are not careful to carry out all the words of this law that are written in this book,[c] to fear this honored and awesome Name, the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants: severe, long-lasting plagues and distressing, long-lasting sicknesses.

60 Then he will bring back on you all the sicknesses of Egypt that you feared, and they will cling to you. 61 More than that, the Lord will bring on you all other sicknesses and plagues that are not written in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

62 Then you will be left as just a few people instead of being as numerous as the stars in the heavens, because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.

63 Just as the Lord delighted in making you prosperous and making you many in number, likewise the Lord will delight in causing you to perish and in destroying you. You will be torn away from your land that you are going to possess.

64 The Lord will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods, gods made of wood and stone, gods that you and your fathers have not known. 65 Still, among those nations you will find no peace, nor will the sole of your foot find a place to rest. There the Lord will give you a trembling heart and longing eyes and a despairing soul.

66 Your life will be hung out in front of you. Night and day you will live in dread, and you will not expect to survive.

67 In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” In the evening you will say, “If only it were morning!” because of the dread you feel in your heart and because of what your eyes see.

68 The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships on a journey that I said you would never again experience. There you will try to sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 28:22 The translation follows an alternate reading of the Hebrew. The main Hebrew reading is sword.
  2. Deuteronomy 28:22 The identification of some of these plagues is uncertain.
  3. Deuteronomy 28:58 Ancient books were written on scrolls, not in bound books.
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Deuteronomy 27
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Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV)

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