Blessings for Obedience

1 And if you will indeed be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you on high above all the peoples of the earth; 2 and all these blessings shall come upon you and keep with you, if you will be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God. 3 You shall be blessed in the city, and blessed in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the offspring of your womb, and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle, the oxen of your herd, and the flocks of your sheep. 5 Your basket and your store shall be blessed. 6 You shall be blessed when you come in and when you go out. 7 The Lord shall cause your adversaries that rise up against you to be shattered before you; they will come out to you in one way, but they shall flee in seven ways from before you. 8 The Lord will command a blessing upon you in all your storehouses, and on all that you set your hand to, and will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives to you. 9 The Lord shall confirm you for Himself to be a holy people, as He has sworn to you, if you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and walk in the ways which are right before Him. 10 And all the nations of the earth shall see that the Name of the Lord is invoked upon you, and they will be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will make you abound in good, in the offspring of your womb, and of your cattle, and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open for you His good treasure, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the works of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but not borrow; 13 and the Lord will make you strong and not weak,⁠a and you shall always be above and not below, if you will obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today to keep and to perform. 14 And you shall not go astray from any of the things I command you today, right or left, to walk after the gods of the Gentiles to serve them.

Curses for Disobedience

15 But if you will not obey the Memra of the Lord your God to observe and do all His commandments, and His statutes which I command you today, all these curses shall come upon you and cling to you. 16 You shall be cursed in the city, and cursed in the field; 17 cursed your basket and your store; 18 cursed the offspring of your womb, the produce of your ground, the oxen of your herd, and the flocks of your sheep. 19 You shall be cursed when you come in and when you go out. 20 The Lord shall send upon you curses and trouble and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly, on account of the wickedness of your works, because you have forgotten to fear Me. 21 The Lord shall make the plague cling to you, until He has destroyed you from the land into which you are going to possess it. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting, with fever, with inflammation, with dryness, and with the sword, with crop blight, and with mildew. And they shall follow you until you are destroyed. 23 And the heavens over your head will be hard as bronze in withholding rain, and the ground under you hard as iron in producing no fruit. 24 The Lord will give you ashes for the rain of your land, and dust will come down from the heavens upon you, until you are destroyed. 25 The Lord will deliver you up to be broken before your enemies; you will go out to them by one way, but you shall flee by seven ways before them, and you shall be dispersed in all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And your body shall be thrown out for food for all the birds of the heaven, and for the animals of the earth, and there shall be no one to drive them away. 27 And the Lord will strike you with the ulcer of the Egyptians, with hemorrhoids, sores, and the scaly skin disease, from which you cannot be healed. 28 And the Lord will strike you with madness, and blindness, and with bewilderment of heart; 29 and you shall grope at noon as the blind gropes in darkness; and you shall not prosper in your way, but be only oppressed and robbed always, and no one will be able to save. 30 You will become engaged to a woman, but another man shall have sexual relations with her; you will build a house, but not live in it, and plant a vineyard, but have no use of it. 31 Your ox will be killed in your sight, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be taken away from you, and not be returned to you; your sheep will be delivered to your enemies, and you will have no one to rescue them; 32 your sons and daughters will be given up to another people, and your eyes will strain with longing for them all day, and you will be powerless. 33 A people you do not know shall consume the produce of your land and all your labor, and you will only be oppressed and crushed always. 34 And you will be driven mad by what your eyes see. 35 The Lord will strike you with a severe ulcer upon your knees and your thighs, from which you will not be able to be healed from the sole of your foot to your brain. 36 The Lord will take you and the king you have appointed over you into captivity to a people whom you and your fathers have not known; and there you shall serve a people, worshipers of idols of wood and stone; 37 and you will become a ruin, a proverb, and a cautionary tale, among all nations where the Lord shall make you go. 38 You will carry much seed into the field but gather little, for the locust will consume it; 39 you will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will not drink the wine, nor gather in, for the worm shall eat it; 40 you will have olive trees in all your borders, but you will not anoint yourself with their oil, for your olive trees shall wither; 41 you will father sons and daughters, but will not have them with you, for they shall go into captivity. 42 The locust will consume all the produce and the trees of your land. 43 The uncircumcised foreigner who is among you will rise up high above you, but you shall be brought down very low: 44 he shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be strong, and you will be weak. 45 And all these curses shall come upon you, and follow you, and cling to you until you are destroyed, because you were not obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you. 46 And they will be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and upon your children forever; 47 because you would not worship before the Lord your God with cheerfulness and goodness of heart for the abundance of all His benefits: 48 but you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and lack of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until He has destroyed you.

Siege and Exile

49 And the Lord will bring upon you a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, like the flying eagle, a people whose language you will not understand, 50 a people of mighty presence, who will not regard the old man, nor have mercy on the infant. 51 And he will eat up the increase of your cattle, and the produce of your ground, until he has destroyed you; for he will not leave you grain, wine, nor oil, the oxen of your herd, nor the sheep of your flock, until he has brought you to ruin. 52 And he will shut you up in all your cities, until he has brought down your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted to be saved by them throughout all your land; and he will besiege you in all your cities in all your land which the Lord your God gave you. 53 And you will eat the offspring of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God had given you, in the siege and distress with which your enemies shall press you. 54 The man who is gentle among you, and very delicate, will look grudgingly at his brother, and upon the wife of his covenant, and upon the remnant of his children whom he will leave; 55 he will not give to one of them of the flesh of his children which he shall eat, because nothing remains to him of all, in the siege and the distress with which your enemies shall press you in all your cities. 56 She who is tender among you, and delicate, who was not used to putting the sole of her foot upon the ground under her, from delicacy and tenderness, will look grudgingly at the husband of her covenant, and upon her son and her daughter, 57 and against her little children who have been brought forth of her, and against her children whom she has borne; for she will eat them in secret, in the lack of all things, in the siege and the distress with which your enemies shall press you in your cities: 58 if you will not take care to follow all the words of this law which are written in this book, to reverence this glorious and awe-inspiring Name, the Lord your God. 59 And the Lord will make your plagues extraordinary, and the plagues of your children, great and lasting plagues, severe and lasting afflictions. 60 And He will lay upon you all the plagues of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 The Lord will also lay on you all the diseases and plagues not written in this book of the law, until He has destroyed you. 62 And you, who had been as the stars of heaven in number, will be left a small people, because you would not be obedient to the Memra of the Lord your God. 63 And as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to ruin and destroy you, and to carry you away from the land which you are entering to possess it. 64 And the Lord will scatter you among all nations to the ends of the earth; and you shall there serve peoples who worship idols of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 But among those nations you will have no rest, nor will the sole of your foot have rest, but the Lord will give you there a fearful heart, darkness of eyes, and weakness of mind; 66 and you will live in constant uncertainty, and be afraid by night and day, for you will never be sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, if only it were evening! but in the evening you will say, if only it were morning! from the fearfulness of your heart with which you will fear, and the sight of your eyes which you shall see. 68 And the Lord will cause you to return to Egypt, in ships, by the way of which I spoke with you, You shall see it no more: and there you shall be offered for sale as male and female slaves, but no one shall buy you. 69 These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to ratify with the children of Israel in the land of Moab; besides the covenant which He ratified with them at Horeb.