“... The covenant curses in Deut 28:20–44 appear to be directly adapted from the curses in EST. As Hans Ulrich Steymans has recently argued, "The sequence of motifs [in the main curse section] is identical. In only two cases does a topic appear at a slightly different position, and in both these cases one can explain the difference as a deliberate scribal arrangement." The clearest adaptations are the following curses by all the gods (EST 528–30) and by Sin, Shamash, and Venus (EST 419–29): [...] In each of these adaptations, the Israelite composer intensified the Assyrian curse, using a variety of literary strategies. In the first curse, the author collapsed the Assyrian simile ("like iron," "just as . . . from a bronze heaven") into a direct transformation ("shall be bronze . . . iron"). He also inverts the order from "ground . . . heaven" to "heaven . . . earth," creating a more cosmic orientation. The Assyrian transformation of rain and dew into burning coals is altered in the Hebrew into a transformation into "dust" and "dirt." These words in Hebrew have an association with death and the underworld. ...”