1 Blessings at Gerizim “Now it shall be, if you diligently listen toandobey the voice of the Lyour God, being careful to do all of His commandments which I am commanding you today, the Lyour God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
2 All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you pay attention to the voice of the Lyour God.
3 “Youwill beblessed in the city, and youwill beblessed in the field.
4 “TheLit fruit and so throughout.offspring of yourLit womb.body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your animals, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flockwill beblessed.
5 “Your basket and your kneading bowlwill beblessed.
6 “Youwill beblessed when you come in and youwill beblessed when you go out.
7 “The Lwill cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way, but flee before you seven ways.
8 The Lwill command the blessing upon you in your storehouses and inLit all to which you set your hand.all that you undertake, and He will bless you in the land which the Lyour God gives you.
9 The Lwill establish you as a people holy [and set apart] to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lyour God and walk [that is, live your life each and every day] in His ways.
10 So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the L, and they will be afraid of you.
11 The Lwill give you great prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lswore to your fathers to give you.
12 The Lwill open for you His good treasure house, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.
13 The Lwill make you the head (leader) and not the tail (follower); and you will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listenandpay attention to the commandments of the Lyour God, which I am commanding you today, to observe them carefully.
14 Do not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or to the left, to follow and serve other gods.
15 Consequences of Disobedience “But it shall come about, if you do not listen toandobey the voice of the Lyour God, being careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 “Youwill becursed in the city and cursed in the field.
17 “Your basket and your kneading bowlwill becursed.
18 “The offspring of your body and the produce of your land, the offspring of your herd and the young of your flockwill becursed.
19 “Youwill becursed when you come in and youwill becursed when you go out.
20 “The Lwill send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your deeds, because you haveLit forsaken.turned away from Me.
21 The Lwill make the pestilenceandplague cling to you until He has consumedandeliminated you from the land which you are entering to possess.
22 The Lwill strike you with consumption [causing you to waste away] and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew [on your crops]; and they will pursue you until you perish.
23 The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze [giving no rain and blocking all prayers], and the earth which is under you, iron [hard to plow and yielding no produce].
24 The Lwill make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 “The Lwill cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out against them one way, but flee before them seven ways, and you will bean example ofterror to all the kingdoms of the earth [when they see your destruction].
26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
27 “The Lwill strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and the itch that you cannot heal.
28 The Lwill strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heartandmind;
29 and you will be groping at noon [in broad daylight], just as the blind grope in the darkness, and nothing you do will prosper; but you will only be oppressedandexploited and robbed continually, with no one to save you.
30 You will be pledged to marry a wife, but another man will be intimate with her [before you]; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.
31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it; your donkey will be torn away from you, and it will not be returned to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.
32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them continually; but there will be nothing you can do.
33 A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all the products of your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressedandexploited and crushed continually.
34 You shall be driven mad by the sight ofLit your eyes which you.the things you see.
35 The Lwill strike you on the knees and on the legs with sore boils that you cannot heal, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36 The Lwill bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation which you and your fathers have never known; there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone.
37 And you will become a horror, a proverb [a mere object lesson], and a taunt [a derisive joke] among all the people to which the Ldrives you.
38 “You will bring out a great quantity of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locusts will consume it.
39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gatherthe grapes,because the worm will eat them.
40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will notOlive oil was commonly used like a cosmetic to soften the skin, and as a hair dressing.anoint yourselves with the oil, because your olives will drop off.
41 You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours [for long], because they will go into captivity.
42 The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground.
43 The stranger who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower.
44 He will lend to you [out of his affluence], but you will not lend to him [because of your poverty]; he will be the head, and you the tail.
45 “So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the Lyour God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you.
46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.
47 “Because you did not serve the Lyour God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you],
48 you will therefore serve your enemies whom the Lsends against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke [of slavery] on your neck until He has destroyed you.
49 “The Lwill bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle swoops down [to attack], a nation whose language you will not understand,
50 aLit strong of face. Assyria and Babylonia have been suggested as prophetic fulfillments for this nation, and prophecy often has more than one fulfillment.defiant nation who willLit not lift up the face of.have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young,
51 and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock 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; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the Lyour God has given you.
53 Then you will eat the offspring of your own body [to avoid starvation], the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lyour God has given you, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you.
54 The man who is most refined and well-bred among youLit his eye will be evil toward.will be cruelandhostile toward his brother and towardLit the wife of his bosom.the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain,
55 so that he will not giveevenone of them any of the flesh of his childrenThe horror of the situation is understated: this self-absorbed father begins killing some of his children to feed himself. The rest of the family, also starving under the brutal conditions, probably want some of the macabre meal but the father keeps it all for himself.which he will eat,The implication is that under ordinary conditions, such a person would undoubtedly gag at eating perfectly good food that might be slightly stale or otherwise unappealing to him.because he has nothing else left, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities.
56 The most refined and well-bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and pampered,Lit her eye will be evil toward.will be cruelandhostile towardLit the husband of her bosom.the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter,
57 and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her legs and toward the children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.
58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fearandhonor with reverence this glorious and awesome name, the Lyour God,
59 then the Lwill bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses.
60 Moreover, He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.
61 Also the Lwill bring on you every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of this law, until you are destroyed.
62 Because you did not obey the voice of the Lyour God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number.
63 It shall come about that just as the Ldelighted over you to make you prosper and multiply, so the Lwill delight over you to bring you to ruin and destruction; and you will beThere have been many “uprootings” from the land, notably those by Nebuchadnezzar (605, 587, 586 b.c.), Titus (a.d. 70), and later by the Emperor Hadrian (a.d. 135) who issued a proclamation forbidding Jews to live in Judea, or even to approach its border. In his attempt to eradicate Judaism, among other things, Hadrian renamed the Roman province of Syria Palaestina (after the Philistines).uprooted [violently] from the land which you are entering to possess.
64 And the Lwill scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
65 Among those nations you will find no peace (rest), and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lwill give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.
66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; night and day you will be filled with anxiety and have no assurance of living.
67 In the morning you will say, ‘I wish it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’—because of the dread in your heart with which you tremble, and because of the sight of your eyes which you will see.
68 The Lwill bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I said to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no one to buy you.”