The Fifth Book of Moses: Deuteronomy

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- Chapter 28 -

(Leviticus 25:18–22)

“If you do what Yahweh our God tells you to do and faithfully obey everything that I am today commanding you to do, he will cause you to become greater than any other nation on the earth.

If you obey Yahweh, all these blessings will come to you.

He will bless everything that you do when you are in the cities and he will bless everything that you do when you are working in the fields.

He will bless you by giving you many children and by giving you abundant crops, and plenty of cattle and sheep.

He will bless you by giving you plenty of grain to make bread.

He will bless you everywhere, when you go out of your houses and when you come into your houses.

Yahweh will enable you to defeat the armies of your enemies; they will attack you from one direction, but they will run away from you in seven directions.

Yahweh will bless you by filling your barns with grain, and he will bless all the work that you do; he will bless you in the land that he is giving to you.

If you obey all the commandments that Yahweh our God has given to you and if you live your lives by following his commandments, he will make you his own, his holy people, which is just as he promised.

Then all the people groups on the earth will realize that you belong to Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.

And Yahweh will cause you to prosper very much. He will give you many children, many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he solemnly promised to our ancestors that he would give to you.

At the time that rain is needed, Yahweh will send it from where he stores it in the sky, and he will bless all your work, with the result that you will be able to lend money to many other nations, but you will not need to borrow money from them.

If you faithfully obey all of the commands of Yahweh our God that I am giving you today, Yahweh will cause your nation to be superior to other nations, not inferior to them; you will always be prosperous and you will never be needy.

Yahweh will do all these things for you if you do not stop obeying what I am commanding you today, and if you never worship other gods.

The Curses of Disobedience

(Leviticus 20:1–9; Leviticus 26:14–39)

But if you do not do what Yahweh our God is telling you to do, and if you do not faithfully obey all his rules and regulations that I am giving to you today, he will bring these curses upon you and he will let them have their full force against you.

He will curse you when you are in the cities and he will curse you when you are working in the fields.

He will curse you by not giving you much grain to make bread.

He will curse you by giving you only a few children, by giving you poor crops, and by not giving you many cattle and sheep.

He will curse you everywhere, when you go out of your houses and when you come into your houses.

If you do evil things and reject Yahweh, he will curse you by causing you to be confused, and to be frustrated in all that you do, until your enemies quickly and completely destroy you.

Yahweh will send terrible diseases on you, until not one of you remains alive in the land that you are about to enter and occupy.

Yahweh will afflict you with diseases that shrivel your bodies, with fever, with inflammation. It will be extremely hot, and it will not rain. There will be scorching winds, and he will cause your crops to rot. All these things will strike you until you die.

No rain will fall from the sky, with the result that the ground will be as hard as iron.

Instead of sending rain, Yahweh will send strong winds to blow sand and dust over your land, until your land is ruined.

Yahweh will enable your enemies to defeat you; your soldiers will attack them from one direction, but will run away from them in seven directions, and when the people of other nations see what is happening to you, they will say that it is horrible.

You will die, and birds and wild animals will come and eat your corpses, and there will not be anyone to scare them away.

Yahweh will cause you to have boils on your skin, like he caused the people of Egypt to have many years ago. He will cause you to have tumors, open sores, and your skin will itch, but there will be nothing that will cure those diseases.

Yahweh will cause some of you to become insane; he will cause some of you to become blind, and he will cause some of your minds to become confused.

Because you will not be able to see where you are going, at midday you will grope around with your hands, like people do in the darkness. You will not prosper in anything that you do. You will continually be oppressed and robbed, and there will not be anyone to help you.

Some of you men will be engaged to marry a young woman, but someone else will forcibly sleep with her. You will build houses, but you will never live in them. You will plant grapevines, but you will not eat the grapes; someone else will eat them.

Your enemies will butcher your cattle while you watch them, and you will not get any of the meat to eat. They will drag away your donkeys while you watch them do it, and they will not give them back to you. They will take away your sheep; and there will not be anyone to help you rescue them.

While you watch, your sons and daughters will be given to foreigners to become their slaves. Every day you will watch for your children to return, but you will watch in vain.

People from a foreign nation will take all the crops that you worked hard to produce, and they will constantly treat you harshly and cruelly.

The result will be that all these terrible things that you see will cause you to become insane.

Yahweh will cause your legs to be covered with painful boils that cannot be healed, and you will have boils from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head.

Yahweh will cause your king and the rest of you to be taken to another country, to a place in which you and your ancestors have never lived, and there you will worship and serve gods that are made of wood or stone.

When the people groups in nearby countries see what has happened to you, they will be shocked; they will taunt you and make fun of you in every place where Yahweh drives you.

You will plant plenty of seeds in your fields, but you will reap only a small harvest, because locusts will eat the crops.

You will plant grapevines and take care of them, but you will not pick any grapes to make wine, because worms will eat the vines.

Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will not get any olive oil to rub on your skin because the olives will drop on the ground before they are ripe.

You will have sons and daughters, but they will not stay with you, because they will be captured and taken away.

Swarms of locusts will eat your crops and the leaves of all your trees.

Foreigners who live in your land will become more and more powerful, and you will become less and less powerful.

They will have money to lend to you, but you will not have any money to lend to them. They will be superior to you, and you will be inferior to them.

All these disasters will happen to you and continue to happen to you until you are destroyed, if you do not do what Yahweh your God told you to do, and do not obey all the rules and regulations that he gave to you.

These disasters will solemnly warn you and your descendants forever what happens to groups who disobey Yahweh.

Because Yahweh blessed you abundantly in many ways, you should have served him very joyfully, but you did not do that.

Therefore, you will work for the enemies whom Yahweh will send to attack you. You will be hungry and thirsty; you will not have clothes to wear; and you will lack everything else that you need. And Yahweh will cause you to become slaves and work hard until he destroys you.

Yahweh will bring against you an army from very far away, soldiers who speak a language that you do not understand. They will swoop down on you quickly like an eagle.

They will be fierce looking. They will not act mercifully toward anyone, not even young children and old people.

They will kill and eat your livestock, and they will eat your crops, and you will starve. They will not leave for you any grain or wine or olive oil or cattle or sheep; and you will all die from hunger.

Your enemies will surround your towns throughout the land that Yahweh your God is about to give to you, and they will break down the high and strong walls around your towns, walls which you trusted would protect you.

When your enemies are surrounding your towns, you will be extremely hungry, with the result that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters that Yahweh your God has given to you.

When your enemies have surrounded your towns, even the most gentle and sensitive men among you will want food very desperately, with the result that they will kill their own children and eat their flesh, because they will not have anything else to eat.

They will not even share any of it with their brothers or wives whom they love very much or with any of their other children who are still alive.

Even the most gentle and kind women among you, who are very rich with the result that they have never been forced to walk anywhere, will do the same thing.

When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that after they give birth to a child, they will secretly kill the baby and eat its flesh and also eat the afterbirth. And they will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children.

If you do not faithfully obey all of the laws that I am writing, and if you do not have the utmost respect for Yahweh our glorious God,

he will punish you by sending on you and on your descendants great afflictions and plagues which will last for many years.

He will bring on you the plagues that he sent on the people of Egypt, and you will never be healed.

He will also send on you many other sicknesses and diseases that I have not talked about in these laws, until you all will die.

You became as numerous as the stars in the sky, but only a few of you will remain alive, if you do not obey Yahweh your God.

Yahweh was very happy to do good things for you and to cause you to become very numerous, but now he will be happy to ruin you and get rid of you. Those of you who do not die from these plagues will be snatched away from the land that you will soon be entering to possess.

Yahweh will scatter you among many people groups, all over the earth, and in those places you will worship other gods that are made of wood or stone, gods which you and your ancestors have never known.

In those areas you will not have any peace. You will feel hopeless and be discouraged.

You will always be afraid that your enemies will kill you. You will be very fearful, all day and all night.

Because you will be very fearful and because you will be very distressed because of the terrible things that you see, each morning you will say ‘I wish it were evening already!’ and each evening you will say ‘I wish it were morning already!’

Yahweh will send some of you back to Egypt in ships, even though he promised that you would never be forced to go there again. There in Egypt you will try to sell yourselves to become slaves of your enemies in order to have food to eat, but no one will buy you.”

(Leviticus 25:18–22)

It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to the LORD your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

All these blessings will come upon you, and overtake you, if you listen to the LORD your God’s voice.

You shall be blessed in the city, and you shall be blessed in the field.

You shall be blessed in the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your animals, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock.

Your basket and your kneading trough shall be blessed.

You shall be blessed when you come in, and you shall be blessed when you go out.

The LORD will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck before you. They will come out against you one way, and will flee before you seven ways.

The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns, and in all that you put your hand to. He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

The LORD will establish you for a holy people to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and walk in his ways.

All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the LORD’s name, and they will be afraid of you.

The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

The LORD will open to you his good treasure in the sky, to give the rain of your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You will lend to many nations, and you will not borrow.

The LORD will make you the head, and not the tail. You will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today, to observe and to do,

and shall not turn away from any of the words which I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

The Curses of Disobedience

(Leviticus 20:1–9; Leviticus 26:14–39)

But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you.

You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field.

Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed.

You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out.

The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me.

The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it.

The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron.

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.

The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away.

The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed.

The LORD will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.

You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.

You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.

Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.

A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always,

so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad.

The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.

You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it.

You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them.

You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off.

You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.

Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground.

The foreigner who is among you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower.

He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you.

They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever.

Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things;

therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand,

a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young.

They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you.

You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.

The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining,

so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates.

The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter,

toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates.

If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD your God,

then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration.

He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you.

Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you until you are destroyed.

You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice.

It will happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess.

The LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.

Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul.

Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life.

In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see.

The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told to you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.