Deuteronomy

Blessings

Well now, if you obey in truth the voice of the Lord, your God, practicing and observing all the commandments which I give you today, the Lord, your God, shall raise you high above all the nations of the earth.

Then all these blessings shall reach you and come upon you for having obeyed the voice of the Lord, your God:

Blessed shall you be in the city and the field.

Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, the young of your asses, the offspring of your cattle and sheep.

Blessed shall be your basket and your bowl of dough.

Blessed shall you be when you begin and when you finish.

The Lord will bring down your enemies who rise against you and put them at your feet. They will come out against you in one way but flee from you in seven ways.

Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your sheep.

The Lord will order the blessing to be with you in your granaries and activities. He shall bless you in the land which the Lord, your God, gives you.

The Lord shall make you a holy people, as he has sworn if you keep his commandments and follow in his ways.

Then all the nations of the earth shall see that you are under the protection of the Lord, and they will respect you.

The Lord will fill you with all kinds of good things, increasing the fruit of your womb, your livestock, and your land, which the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors that he would give you.

The Lord will open the heavens for you, his rich treasury, to give rain in its season, which your fields need, and he will bless all you plan to do. You will lend to many nations, but you will not need to borrow anything from them.

The Lord will set you at the head of the nations and not at the tail; you shall always be on top and never below, if you fulfill the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I command you today,

observing them and putting them into practice, without turning aside either to the right or to the left to follow and worship other gods.

Curses

But if you do not obey the voice of the Lord, your God, and do not take care to practice all his commandments and norms which I command you today, all these curses shall come upon you:

Cursed shall you be in the city and the field.

Cursed shall your granary be, and your storage houses be cursed.

Cursed shall you be in everything you do, from beginning to end.

The Lord will send misfortune, destruction, and fear upon everything you do until you are destroyed and perish quickly because of the evil deeds you have done in forsaking the Lord.

He shall make the pestilence cling to you until you disappear from the land you are entering today to make it yours.

The Lord will punish you with tuberculosis, fever, inflammation, fiery heat, wheat smug, and mildew that shall pursue you until you die.

The heavens above you shall be brass, and the earth under you shall be iron.

Instead of rain, the Lord shall make ashes and powder fall from heaven until you are destroyed.

The Lord shall let you be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out to fight them by one way, but by seven ways, you shall flee from them. All the nations of the earth shall be horrified to see you.

Your dead bodies shall serve as food for all the birds of the air, and no one shall chase them away.

The Lord shall strike you with the boils and plagues of Egypt, with tumors, scurvy, and itch, from which you cannot be healed.

The Lord will punish you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.

In the same way that the blind grope in darkness, so shall you grope in broad daylight, and you shall not succeed. You will always be oppressed and robbed, with no one to defend you.

You shall be engaged to marry a woman, but another man shall lie with her. You shall build a house, but not live in it. You shall plant a vineyard but not eat its grapes.

Your ox shall be slaughtered before you, but you shall not eat of it. Before your very eyes, you shall be robbed of your ass, which will never be recovered. Your sheep shall be turned over to your enemies, but no one shall come to defend you.

Your sons and daughters shall be handed over to foreign nations, and you shall yearn for them continually, but you will be unable to act.

You shall be driven mad by what you see.

The Lord will strike you with the most malignant boils on the knees and legs, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head, from which you cannot be healed.

The Lord will bring you and the king you have chosen to a nation, which neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you shall serve other gods made of wood and stone.

All the nations to which the Lord will bring you will be astonished and will make you a proverb and the butt of jokes.

You shall sow many seeds in your fields, but harvest very little because the locusts shall devour them.

You shall plant and cultivate a vineyard, but not drink wine or eat grapes, because the worms shall devour them.

You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but they shall not give you even a drop of oil to anoint yourself, for the olives shall drop off and rot.

You shall have sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall be taken captive.

All your trees and all the produce of your land shall be infested with insects.

The foreigner who lives with you shall prosper daily at your expense as you become poorer.

He shall lend to you, and you shall have to borrow; he shall always be the head, and you the tail.

All these curses shall fall upon you, pursue you, and oppress you until you perish, for you did not listen to the voice of the Lord, your God, or obey the commandments and the norms he gave you.

These shall be forever upon you and your descendants as an awesome sign.

For having not served the Lord, your God, with joy and gladness of heart when you lacked nothing,

you shall serve the enemies the Lord will send against you, while you go hungry, thirsty, naked, and suffer all kinds of misery. They shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck until they have destroyed you all.

The Lord shall make a nation from afar come against you, as swift as the eagle flies,

a nation whose language you do not understand, a cruel nation that does not show respect to the old or compassion to the young.

They shall consume the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land so that you perish, leaving you with no wheat, wine, or oil or the young of your cattle and sheep until they finish you off.

They shall besiege you in all your cities until the highest and most fortified walls where you placed your trust fall throughout your land. You shall remain besieged within your towns throughout the land which the Lord, your God, will give you.

You shall eat the fruit of your body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, which the Lord has given you, in the siege and anguish your enemy will reduce you.

The most refined among you shall look with distrust at his brother, his wife, and his children who are still alive

refusing to share with them the flesh of his children that he is eating because nothing is left to him during the siege and the anguish to which your enemy shall reduce you in your cities.

The most tender and delicate woman among your people, so delicate and tender that she will not dare go barefoot, shall look distrustfully at the husband of her heart and her son and daughter.

She shall hide from them to eat the placenta from her womb and the children to whom she gave birth, for lack of any other food when your enemy lays siege to your cities and reduces you to the most extreme misery.

If you do not put into practice all the words of this law which are written in this book and do not fear that glorious and awesome Name, the Lord, your God,

he will punish you, you and your descendants, with fearful plagues, severe and lasting plagues, malignant sicknesses and incurable diseases.

Even more, the Lord shall order all the diseases and plagues not recorded in this law book to be with you until you are wiped out.

For not having obeyed the voice of the Lord, your God, only a few of you will remain, although before, you were as numerous as the stars of heaven.

So it shall happen, that in the same manner that it pleased the Lord to do you good and to multiply you, it shall also please him to pursue and destroy you. You shall be plucked off the land you are entering to conquer.

The Lord shall scatter you among all the nations, 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 ancestors have known.

In those nations, you shall not have peace or rest for the sole of your foot. The Lord shall give you a cowardly heart, swollen eyes, and an anxious soul by day and night.

Your life shall be before you as a pendant that hangs on a thread, and you shall be in dread night and day.

The Lord will bring you back to Egypt for your sin, despite what he said to you: ‘You shall not see it again.’ There, you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves, but no man will buy you.

Covenant with Moab

In the morning, you shall say: ‘Would it be evening!’ but in the evening, you shall say: ‘Would it be morning!’ because of the fear that makes your heart tremble when you behold what your eyes see.

These are the words of the Covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the Covenant he made with them at Horeb.

He will make all the plagues of Egypt fall upon you, which you were afraid of, and these shall cling to you.