Deuteronomy 28:39-68 ▼

39 You shall plant a vineyard and dress it, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, because the worms shall eat it.

40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off.

41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not remain yours; for they shall go into captivity.

42 All your trees and fruits of your land shall the locust consume.

43 The stranger who is in your midst shall rise up above you very high; and you shall come down very low.

44 He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

45 Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed; because you did not hearken to the voice of the LORD your God, and did not keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you;

46 And they shall be upon you for signs and wonders, and upon your descendants for ever.

47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;

48 Therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD shall send against you, in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of all things; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you.

49 The LORD shall bring a nation against you from afar, from the ends of the earth, as swift as the eagle that flies; a nation whose language you do not understand;

50 A people of fierce countenance, who shall not regard the person of the old, nor show mercy to the young:

51 And they shall eat the young of your cattle and the fruit of your land, until they destroy you; they also shall not leave you either grain or wine or oil or herds of oxen or flocks of sheep, until they have destroyed you.

52 And they shall besiege you in all your cities, until your high and fortified walls in which you trust are taken throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your cities throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.

53 And you shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you: and you shall eat them in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall harass you;

54 So that the man who abounds in delights among you and lives a luxurious life, his eye shall be evil toward his brother and toward his lawful wife and toward the remnant of his children that are left;

55 So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat; because he has nothing left him in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall harass you in all your cities.

56 The woman who abounds in delights, who lives a luxurious life among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground because of her delicacy and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward her husband and toward her son and toward her daughter

57 And toward the afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and toward her child whom she shall bear, when she eats them for want of all things in the siege and distress with which your enemy shall harass you in all your cities.

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

59 Then the LORD will send your plagues and the plagues of your descendants, even great plagues of long duration, and sore sicknesses of long duration.

60 Moreover he will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid; and they shall cleave to you.

61 Also all kinds of sickness and all plagues which are not written in this book of the law, then will the LORD bring upon you, until you are destroyed.

62 And you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the heaven for multitude; because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

63 And as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and exterminate you; and you shall be carried away from the land which you are entering to possess.

64 And the LORD shall scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

65 And among these nations you shall find no ease, neither shall the sole of your foot have rest; but the LORD shall give you there a trembling heart and failing of eyes and sorrow of the soul;

66 And your life shall be uncertain before you; and you shall fear day and night, and shall have no assurance of your life;

67 In the morning you shall say, Would God it were evening! and in the evening you shall say, Would God it were morning! because of the fear of your heart with which you shall fear, and because of the hardships which you shall see with your eyes.

68 And the LORD shall bring you back into Egypt with ships, by the way whereof he said to you, You shall see it no more again; and there you shall be sold to your enemies as bondmen and bondwomen, but there shall be no one to buy you.