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you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, and are careful to observe all His commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:
3 “You will be blessed in the city, and you will be blessed in the country.
4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, the produce of your ground, and the offspring of your livestock, and the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.
5 Your basket and your kneading bowl will be blessed.
6 You will be blessed when you come in, and you will be blessed when you go out.
7 “The Lord will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face. They will advance against you from one direction, and flee before you in seven.
8 “The Lord will command a blessing upon you in all your storehouses and on everything you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
9 “The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. 10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will be afraid of you. 11 The Lord will make you prosper abundantly, in the fruit of your womb, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your soil, in the land the Lord swore to your forefathers to give you.
12 “The Lord will open for you His rich storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. 13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You will always be at the top, and never at the bottom, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you this day, to observe them carefully. 14 Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the commands that I give you this day, and do not go after other gods to serve them.
15 “However, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God by carefully observing all His commands and decrees with which I charge you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 “You will be cursed in the city,
and cursed in the country.
17 Your basket and your kneading bowl will be cursed.
18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, the produce of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.
19 You will be cursed when you come in, and cursed when you go out.
20 “The Lord will send against you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything that you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of the wickedness of your deeds by which you have forsaken me. 21 The Lord will make pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land that you are entering to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and with inflammation, with burning heat and with drought, and with blight and with mildew. All these will pursue you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you will be iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your land into powder and dust; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.
25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them from one direction, but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one left to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumours, festering sores, and the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. 29 You will grope about at midday, as a blind man gropes in darkness, unable to find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will help you.
30 “You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but not enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be taken away from in front of you and not returned to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to rescue them. 32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes shall grow weary and fail from looking for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A nation whom you have not are known will eat the produce of your land and all your labours, and you be only oppressed and crushed continually. 34 You will be driven mad by the sight of what your eyes see. 35 The Lord will strike you on the knees and legs with painful boils from which you cannot be healed, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
36 “The Lord will bring you, and the king whom you have set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations where the Lord will drive you.
38 “You will sow much seed in the field, but you will gather in little, for the locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worms will eat them. 40 You will have olives trees throughout your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not enjoy them, for they will go into captivity. 42 Locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
43 “Foreigners living among you will rise above you higher and higher, while you sink lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.
45 “All these curses will come on you, pursuing and overtaking you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commands and His statutes that He gave you. 46 They will be a sign and wonder to you and to your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart for the abundance of everything, 48 therefore you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and in a lack of everything. He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.
49 “The Lord will bring a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, that swoops down like an eagle, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce appearance, with neither respect for the elderly, nor pity for the young. 51 They will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you neither grain nor new wine nor oil, nor the increase of your cattle, or the offspring of your flocks until they have caused you to perish. 52 They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted, come down throughout your land that the Lord your God has given you.
53 “Then in the distress of the siege your enemies will impose on you, you will eat the fruit of your own womb, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will begrudge his own brother, or the wife whom he embraces, or his surviving children, 55 so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating, for he has nothing else left, because of the siege and terrible hardship that your enemy will impose on you in all your cities. 56 The most refined and delicate women among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so refined and delicate, will begrudge the husband she cherishes, her son, and her daughter, 57 the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children whom she bears, because she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else in the siege and the distress that your enemy will impose on you in your cities.
58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this scroll, to fear this honoured and awesome name—
— 59 then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses. 60 He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, which you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague that are not written in this scroll of the law, the Lord will bring on you until you are destroyed. 62 Then you, who were once as numerous as the stars, will be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 63 Just as the Lord took delight in you, to make you prosper and multiply you, so the Lord will take delight in making you perish and destroying you, and you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
64 “Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And among those nations you will find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day, with no assurance of life. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread you will have in your heart and because of the sights that your eyes will see. 68 The Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by a route that I promised you would never see again; and you will offer yourselves for sale there to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.