Deuteronomy 28:39-68 ▼

39 You'll plant a vineyard, but you won't drink wine or harvest any grapes, because worms will consume it.

40 You'll have olive trees throughout your territory, but you won't be able to anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off the trees.

41 You'll bear sons and daughters, but they won't belong to you, because they'll go into captivity.

42 Whirling locusts will consume every tree and the produce of your land.

43 The foreigner in your midst will be elevated higher and higher over you, while you are brought low little by little.

44 He will lend to you, but you won't lend to him. He'll be the head, but you'll be the tail.

45 All these curses will come upon you and will overwhelm you until you are exterminated, because you didn't obey the LORD your God to keep his commands and statutes, which he had commanded you.

46 These curses will serve as a sign and wonder for you and your descendants as long as you live.|

47 |Because you didn't serve the LORD your God joyfully and wholeheartedly, despite the abundance of everything you have,

48 you'll serve your enemies whom the LORD your God will send against you. You will serve in famine and in drought, in nakedness, and in lack of everything. They'll set a yoke of iron upon your neck until they have exterminated you.

49 |The LORD will raise a distant nation against you from the other side of the earth. Swooping down like a vulture,

50 it will be a nation whose language you don't understand, whose stern appearance neither shows regard nor extends grace to anyone whether old or young.

51 Its army will consume the offspring of your animals and the produce of your soil until you are exterminated. They will leave you without your grain, wine, oil, the increase of your cattle, and the lamb of your flock, until you are completely destroyed.

52 They'll besiege all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you have trusted collapse throughout the land. Indeed, they will besiege all your cities, which the LORD your God gave you.|

53 |You'll eat your own children —the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God gave you—on account of the siege and the distress with which your enemy will oppress you.

54 Even the compassionate man among you—the very sensitive one—will look with evil in his eyes toward his brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving sons, whom he spared.

55 He will withhold from each of them the flesh of his sons that he is eating—since there will be nothing left—on account of the siege and distress with which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities.

56 The most tender and sensitive lady among you, who doesn't venture to touch the soles of her feet to the ground on account of her daintiness, will look with hostility in her eyes against her beloved husband, her sons, and her daughters.

57 She will eat her afterbirth and her newborn children secretly—since there will be nothing left—on account of the siege and distress with which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.|

58 |If you aren't careful to observe all the words of this Law that have been written in this book, instructing you to fear this glorious and awesome name of the LORD your God,

59 then he will inflict extraordinary plagues on you and your children, great and lasting plagues, and severe and lasting illnesses.

60 He will inflict on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they won't be curable.

61 Moreover, the LORD will inflict you with illnesses and plagues that were not written in this Book of the Law, until you are exterminated.

62 Because you will not have obeyed the LORD your God, very few of you will be left—instead of you being as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

63 Just as the LORD delighted to prosper and increase you, so now the LORD will delight to destroy, exterminate, and banish you from the land that you are about to enter to possess.|

64 |He'll scatter you among the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you'll serve other gods made of wood and stones, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.

65 Among those nations you'll have no rest. There'll be no resting place for the soles of your feet. Instead, the LORD will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a despairing spirit.

66 You'll cling to life, being fearful by both night and day, with no assurance of survival.

67 In the morning you'll say, 'I wish it were evening.' Yet in the evening you'll say, |I wish it were morning,| on account of what you'll dread and what you'll see.

68 Finally, the LORD will bring you back to Egypt by ship, a place that I said you'll never see again. There you'll try to sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.|