Deuteronomy 28:39-68 ▼

39 you plant vineyards and have labored, but you do not drink wine, nor gather [grapes], for the worm consumes it;

40 olives are yours in all your border, but you do not pour out oil, for your olive falls off.

41 You beget sons and daughters, but they are not with you, for they go into captivity;

42 the locust possesses all your trees and the fruit of your ground;

43 the sojourner who [is] in your midst goes up very high above you, and you go down very low;

44 he lends [to] you, and you do not lend [to] him; he is for head and you are for tail.

45 And all these curses have come on you, and pursued you, and overtaken you, until you are destroyed, because you have not listened to the voice of your God YHWH, to keep His commands and His statutes which he has commanded you;

46 and they have been on you for a sign and for a wonder, also on your seed—for all time.

47 Because that you have not served your God YHWH with joy and with gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things—

48 you have served your enemies, whom YHWH sends against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in lack of all things; and He has put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.

49 YHWH lifts up a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth—it flies as the eagle—a nation whose tongue you have not heard,

50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not accept the face of the aged and does not favor the young;

51 and it has eaten the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; which does not leave to you grain, new wine, and oil, the increase of your oxen, and the wealth of your flock, until it has destroyed you.

52 And it has laid siege to you in all your gates until your walls come down—the high and the fortified ones in which you are trusting, in all your land; indeed, it has laid siege to you in all your gates, in all your land which your God YHWH has given to you.

53 And you have eaten the fruit of your body, [the] flesh of your sons and your daughters (whom your God YHWH has given to you), in the siege and in the constriction with which your enemies constrict you.

54 The man who is tender in you, and who [is] very delicate—his eye is evil against his brother, and against the wife of his bosom, and against the remnant of his sons whom he leaves,

55 against giving to one of them of the flesh of his sons whom he eats, because he has nothing left for himself in the siege and in the constriction with which your enemy constricts you in all your gates.

56 The tender woman in you, and the delicate, who has not tried the sole of her foot to place on the ground because of delicateness and because of tenderness—her eye is evil against the husband of her bosom, and against her son, and against her daughter,

57 and against her seed which comes out from between her feet, even against her sons whom she bears, for she eats them in secret, in the lacking of everything, in the siege and in the constriction with which your enemy constricts you within your gates.

58 If you do not observe to do all the words of this law which are written in this scroll, to fear this honored and fearful Name—your God YHWH—

59 then YHWH has made your strokes extraordinary, and the strokes [against] your seed [are] great strokes that are persisting and severe sicknesses that are persisting.

60 And He has brought back all the diseases of Egypt on you, from the presence of which you have been afraid, and they have cleaved to you.

61 Also every sickness and every stroke which is not written in the scroll of this law—YHWH causes them to go up on you until you are destroyed,

62 and you have been left with few men, whereas that you would have been as stars of the heavens for multitude, for you have not listened to the voice of your God YHWH.

63 And it has been, as YHWH has rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so YHWH rejoices over you to destroy you and to lay you waste; and you have been pulled away from off the ground to where you are going in to possess it;

64 and YHWH has scattered you among all the peoples, from the end of the earth even to the [other] end of the earth; and you have served other gods there which you have not known, you and your fathers—wood and stone.

65 And you do not rest among those nations, indeed, there is no resting place for the sole of your foot, and YHWH has given to you a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and grief of soul there;

66 and your life has been hanging in suspense before you, and you have been afraid by night and by day, and you do not have assurance in your life;

67 in the morning you say, O that it were evening! And in the evening you say, O that it were morning! (From the fear of your heart, with which you are afraid, and from the sight of your eyes which you see.)

68 And YHWH has brought you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, You do not add to see it anymore; and you have sold yourselves to your enemies there, for menservants and for maidservants, and there is no buyer.”