The Blessings at Mount Gerizim
1“Now it shall be, if you diligently
2And all these blessings will come to you and reach you if you
3“Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be in the
4“Blessed will be the
5“Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6“Blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out.
7“The LORD will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be
8The LORD will command the blessing for you in your
9The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.
10So all the peoples of the earth will see that
11And the LORD will give you more than enough prosperity, in the
12The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless every work of your hand; and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.
13And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will only be above, and not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God which I am commanding you today, to
14and do not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or the left, to pursue other gods to serve them.
Consequences of Disobedience
15“But it shall come about, if you do not
16“Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the
17“Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18“Cursed will be the
19“Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.
20“The LORD will send against you curses, panic, and rebuke, in
21The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has eliminated you from the land where you are entering to take possession of it.
22The LORD will strike you with consumption, inflammation, fever, feverish heat, and with
23
24The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
25“The LORD will cause you to be defeated by your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways from their presence, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
26Your dead bodies will
27“The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, the festering rash, and with scabies, from which you cannot be healed.
28The LORD will strike you with insanity, blindness, and with confusion of
29and you will be groping about at noon, just as a person who is blind gropes in the darkness, and you will not be successful in your ways; but you will only be
30You will
31Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey will be snatched away from you, and will not
32Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them constantly; but there will be nothing
33A people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your ground and every product of your labor, and you will never be anything but oppressed and mistreated continually.
34You will also be driven insane by the sight of
35The LORD will strike you on the knees and thighs with severe boils from which you cannot be healed, and strike you from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
36The LORD will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, made of wood and stone.
37And you will become an object of horror, a song of mockery, and an object of taunting among all the peoples where the LORD drives you.
38“You will bring out a great amount of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locust will devour it.
39You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor bring in the harvest, because the worm will eat it.
40You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will drop off prematurely.
41You will father sons and daughters but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.
42The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground.
43The stranger who is among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower.
44He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail.
45“So all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not
46And they will become a sign and a wonder
47“Since you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a cheerful heart, in gratitude for the abundance of all things,
48you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and devoid of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
49“The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down; a nation whose language you will not understand,
50a nation
51Furthermore, it will eat the
52And it will besiege you in all your
53Then you will eat the
54The man who is
55so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will
56The
57and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her
58“If you are not careful to
59then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and
60And He will bring back on you every disease of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you.
61Also every sickness and every plague, which are not written in the book of this Law, the LORD will bring on you until you are destroyed.
62Then you will be left few in
63And it will come about that, just as the LORD rejoiced over you to be good to you, and make you numerous, so will the LORD rejoice over you to wipe you out and destroy you; and you will be torn away from the land which you are entering to possess.
64Furthermore, the LORD will scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to
65Among those nations you will find no peace, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.
66So your lives will be
67In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And at evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the terror of your heart which you fear, and the sight of your eyes which you will see.
68And the LORD will 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 buyer.”