Blessings for Obeying the Law

28 “Now, if you will be careful to obey the Lord your God and follow all his commands that I tell you today, then the Lord your God will put you high above all the nations on earth. ²If you will obey the Lord your God, then all these blessings will come to you and be yours: ³“The Lord will bless you in the city and in the field. ⁴The Lord will bless you and give you many children. He will bless your land and give you good crops. He will bless your animals and let them have many babies. He will bless all your calves and lambs. ⁵The Lord will bless your baskets and pans {and fill them with food}. ⁶The Lord will bless you at all times in everything you do. ⁷“The Lord will help you defeat your enemies that come to fight against you. Your enemies will come against you one way, but they will run away from you seven different ways! ⁸“The Lord will bless you and fill your barns. He will bless everything you do. The Lord your God will bless you in the land that he is giving you. ⁹The Lord will make you his own special people, like he promised. The Lord will do this if you follow the Lord your God and obey his commands. ¹⁰Then all the people in that land will see that you are called by the name of the Lord. And they will be afraid of you. ¹¹“And the Lord will give you many good things. He will give you many children. He will give your cows many calves. He will give you a good harvest in the land that the Lord promised your ancestors* to give you. ¹²The Lord will open his storehouse where he keeps his rich blessings. The Lord will send rain at the right time for your land. The Lord will bless everything you do. You will have money to lend to many nations. And you will not need to borrow anything from them. ¹³The Lord will make you be like the head, not the tail. You will be on top, not on the bottom. This will happen if you listen to the commands of the Lord your God that I tell you today. You must carefully obey these commands. ¹⁴You must not turn away from any of the teachings that I give you today. You must not turn away to the right or to the left. You must not follow other gods to serve them.

Curses for Not Obeying the Law

¹⁵“But if you don’t listen to things the Lord your God tells you—if you don’t obey all his commands and laws that I tell you today—then all these bad things will happen to you: ¹⁶“The Lord will curse you in the city and in the field. ¹⁷The Lord will curse your baskets and pans {and they will have no food in them}. ¹⁸The Lord will curse you, and you will not have many children. He will curse your land and you will not have good crops. He will curse your animals and they will not have many babies. He will curse all your calves and lambs. ¹⁹The Lord will curse you at all times in everything you do. ²⁰“If you do evil and turn away from the Lord, then he will make bad things happen to you. You will have frustration and trouble in everything you do. He will continue to do this until you are quickly and completely destroyed. He will do this because you turned away from him and left him. ²¹The Lord will cause you to have terrible diseases until you are finished—destroyed from the land you are going to take. ²²The Lord will punish you with diseases, fever, and swelling. The Lord will send you terrible heat and you will have no rain. Your crops will die from the heat and disease.* All these bad things will happen until you are destroyed! ²³{There will be no clouds in the sky}—the sky will look like polished brass. And the ground under you will be hard like iron. ²⁴The Lord will not send rain—only sand and dust will fall from the sky. It will come down on you until you are destroyed. ²⁵“The Lord will let your enemies defeat you. You will go to fight against your enemies one way, but you will run away from them seven different ways. The bad things that happen to you will make all the people on earth afraid. ²⁶Your dead bodies will be food for the wild birds and animals. There will be no one to scare them away from your dead bodies. ²⁷“The Lord will punish you with boils, like those he sent on the Egyptians. He will punish you with tumors, sores that run, and an itch that can’t be cured. ²⁸The Lord will punish you by making you crazy. He will make you blind and confused. ²⁹In daylight, you will have to feel your way like a blind man. You will fail in everything you do. Again and again people will hurt you and steal things from you. And there will not be anyone to save you. ³⁰“You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will have sexual relations with her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a field of grapes, but you will not gather anything from it. ³¹People will kill your cows in front of you. But you will not eat any of the meat. People will take your donkeys. And they will not give them back to you. Your enemies will get your sheep. And there will not be anyone to save you. ³²“Other people will be allowed to take your sons and your daughters. Day after day, you will look for your children. You will look for them until your eyes become weak and blind—but you will not find them. And God will not help you. ³³“A nation that you don’t know will take all your crops and all the things you worked for. People will treat you badly and abuse you. ³⁴The things you see will make you go crazy! ³⁵The Lord will punish you with sore boils that can’t be healed. These boils will be on your knees and legs. The boils will be on every part of your body—from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. ³⁶“The Lord will send you and your king away to a nation you don’t know. You and your ancestors* have never seen that nation. There you will serve false gods made of wood and stone. ³⁷In the countries where the Lord will send you, the people will be shocked at the bad things that happen to you. They will laugh at you and say bad things about you.

The Curse of Failure

³⁸“Your fields will produce plenty of grain. But your harvest will be small. Why? Because the locusts* will eat your harvest. ³⁹You will plant fields of grapes and work hard in them. But you will not gather the grapes or drink the wine from them. Why? Because the worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees everywhere on your land. But you will not have any of the oil to use. Why? Because the olives will drop to the ground and rot. ⁴¹You will have sons and daughters. But you will not be able to keep them. Why? Because they will be captured and taken away. ⁴²Locusts will destroy all your trees and the crops in your fields. ⁴³The foreigners living among you will get more and more power. And you will lose the power you had. ⁴⁴The foreigners will have money to loan you. But you will not have any money to loan them. They will control you like the head {controls the body}. You will be like the tail. ⁴⁵“All these curses will come on you. They will keep chasing you and catching you, until you are destroyed. Why? Because you did not listen to the things the Lord your God told you. You did not obey the commands and laws that he gave you. ⁴⁶These curses will show people that God judged you and your descendants* forever. People will be amazed at the terrible things that happen to you. ⁴⁷“The Lord your God gave you many blessings. But you did not serve him with joy and a glad heart. ⁴⁸So you will serve the enemies that the Lord will send against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, naked, and poor. The Lord will put a load on you that can’t be removed. You will carry that load until he destroys you.*

The Curse of an Enemy Nation

⁴⁹“The Lord will bring a nation from far away to fight you. You will not understand their language. They will come quickly, like an eagle coming down from the sky. ⁵⁰Those people will be cruel. They will not care about old people. They will not show mercy to young children. ⁵¹They will take your animals and the food you grow. They will take everything until they destroy you. They will not leave you any grain, wine, oil, cows, sheep or goats. They will take everything, until they destroy you. ⁵²“That nation will surround and attack your cities. You think that the tall, strong walls around your cities will protect you. But those walls will fall down. The enemy will surround all your cities everywhere in the land the Lord your God is giving you. ⁵³You will suffer very much. The enemy will surround your cities. They will not let you have any food. You will become very hungry. You will be so hungry that you will eat your own sons and daughters—you will eat the bodies of the children that the Lord your God gave you. ⁵⁴“Even the most gentle and kind man among you will become cruel. He will be cruel to other people. He will be cruel to his wife that he loves so much. And he will be cruel to his children that are still alive. ⁵⁵He will have nothing left to eat, so he will eat his own children. And he will not share that meat with anyone—not even the other people in his own family! All those bad things will happen when your enemy comes to surround your cities and make you suffer. ⁵⁶“Even the most gentle and kind woman among you will become cruel. She might be a lady so gentle and delicate that she never put her feet on the ground to walk anywhere. But she will become cruel to her husband that she loves so much. And she will be cruel to her own son and daughter. ⁵⁷She will hide and give birth to a baby. And she will eat the baby and everything that comes out of her body with it. All those bad things will happen when your enemy comes to surround your cities and make you suffer. ⁵⁸“You must obey all the commands and teachings that are written in this book. And you must respect the wonderful and awesome name of the Lord your God. If you don’t obey, then ⁵⁹the Lord will give you and your descendants* many troubles. Your troubles and diseases will be terrible! ⁶⁰You saw many troubles and diseases in Egypt, and they made you afraid. The Lord will bring all those bad things against you! ⁶¹The Lord will even bring troubles and diseases that are not written in this Book of Teachings. He will continue to do this until you are destroyed. ⁶²You might have as many people as the stars in the sky. But only a few of you will be left. Why? Because you did not listen to the Lord your God. ⁶³“The Lord was happy to be good to you and to make your nation grow. In the same way, the Lord will be happy to ruin and destroy you. You are going to take that land to be yours. But people will take you out of that land! ⁶⁴The Lord will scatter you among all the people in the world. The Lord will scatter you from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve false gods made of wood and stone. They are false gods that you or your ancestors* never worshiped. ⁶⁵“You will not have any peace among these nations. You will have no place to rest. The Lord will fill your mind with worry. Your eyes will feel tired. You will be very upset. ⁶⁶You will live with danger and always be afraid. You will be afraid night and day. You will never feel sure about your life. ⁶⁷In the morning you will say, ‘I wish it were evening!’ In the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ Why? Because of the fear that will be in your heart, and because of the bad things you will see. ⁶⁸The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships. I said you would never have to go to that place again, but the Lord will send you there. In Egypt, you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your enemies. But no person will buy you.”

ancestors Literally, “fathers,” meaning a person’s parents, grandparents, and all the people they are descended from. disease This might be mildew, a disease that turns the heads of grain yellow and stops them from growing seeds. locusts Insects like grasshoppers. Locusts can destroy a large crop very quickly. descendants A person’s children and their future families. The Lord … until he destroys you Literally, “The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck until he destroys you.”

The Agreement in Moab

29 The Lord made an agreement with the people of Israel at Mount Horeb (Sinai). In addition to that agreement, the Lord also commanded Moses to make another agreement with them while they were in Moab. This is that agreement. ²Moses called together all the Israelite people. He said to them, “You saw all the things the Lord did in the land of Egypt. You saw the things he did to Pharaoh, to Pharaoh’s officers, and to his whole country. ³You saw the great troubles he gave them. You saw the miracles and amazing things he did. ⁴But even today you still don’t understand what happened. The Lord has not let you really understand what you saw and heard. ⁵The Lord led you through the desert for 40 years. And during all that time your clothes and your shoes did not wear out. ⁶You did not have any food with you. You did not have any wine or anything else to drink. {But the Lord took care of you.} He did this so that you would understand that he is the Lord your God. ⁷“You came to this place, and King Sihon from Heshbon and King Og from Bashan came out to fight against us. But we defeated them. ⁸Then we took their land and gave it to the people in the family groups of Reuben and Gad, and to half the family group of Manasseh. ⁹If you obey all the commands in this agreement, then you will continue to succeed in everything you do. ¹⁰“Today all of you are standing here before the Lord your God. Your leaders, your officials, your elders (leaders), and all the other men are here. ¹¹Your wives and children are here and also the foreigners living among you—the people who cut your wood and bring you water. ¹²You are all here to enter into an agreement with the Lord your God. The Lord is making this agreement with you today. ¹³With this agreement, the Lord is making you his own special people. And he himself will become your God. He told you this. He promised this to your ancestors* —Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ¹⁴The Lord is making this agreement with its promises not only with you people. ¹⁵He is making this agreement with all of us that stand here today before the Lord our God. But this agreement is also for our descendants* that are not here with us today. ¹⁶You remember how we lived in the land of Egypt. And you remember how we traveled through the countries that were on our way here. ¹⁷You saw their hated things—the idols* they had made from wood, stone, silver, and gold. ¹⁸Be sure that there is no man, woman, family or family group here today that turns away from the Lord our God. No person should go and serve the gods of the other nations. People who do that are like a plant that grows bitter and poisonous fruit. ¹⁹“A person might hear these curses, but he might comfort himself and say, ‘I will continue doing what I want. Nothing bad will happen to me.’ That person might cause bad things to happen not only to himself but to everyone—even to the good people.* ^20–21The Lord will not forgive that person. No, the Lord will be angry and upset at that person. The Lord will punish that person. The Lord will separate that person from all the family groups of Israel. The Lord will completely destroy him. All the bad things that are written in this book will happen to him. Those things are a part of the Agreement that is written in this Book of Teachings. ²²“In the future, your descendants* and foreigners from faraway countries will see how the land has been ruined. They will see the diseases that the Lord has brought to it. ²³All the land will be useless—destroyed by burning sulfur and covered with salt. The land will have nothing planted in it. Nothing will be growing—not even weeds. The land will be destroyed like Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, the cities the Lord destroyed when he was very angry. ²⁴“All the other nations will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land? Why was he so angry?’ ²⁵The answer will be: ‘The Lord is angry because the people of Israel left the Agreement of the Lord, the God of their ancestors.* They stopped following the Agreement that the Lord made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. ²⁶The people of Israel started serving other gods—gods they never worshiped before. The Lord told his people not to worship those gods. ²⁷That is why the Lord became very angry against the people of this land. So he brought to them all the curses that are written in this book. ²⁸The Lord became very angry and upset at them. So he took them out of their land. He put them in another land, where they are today.’ ²⁹“There are some things that the Lord our God has kept secret. Only he knows those things. But the Lord told us about some things. And those teachings are for us and our descendants* forever! And we must obey all the commands in that law.

ancestors Literally, “fathers,” meaning a person’s parents, grandparents, and all the people they are descended from. descendants A person’s children and their future families. idols Statues of false gods that people worshiped. That person … people Literally, “thereby bringing to an end the soaked and the thirsty.”