1If you diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God and carefully follow all his commands that I am giving you today, Yahweh your God will place you high above all the nations of the earth.
2All these blessings will come to you and be yours if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.
3You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
4Your children, your crops, your animals, your livestock, and your flocks will be blessed.
5Your food supply will be blessed.
6You will be blessed in everything you do, from the moment you arrive until the moment you leave.
7Yahweh will make your enemies who attack you be defeated in front of you. They will come at you from one direction but run away in seven directions.
8Yahweh will send blessings on your barns and on everything you undertake. He will bless you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.
9Yahweh will set you apart as his holy people, just as he promised, if you obey the commands of Yahweh your God and follow his ways.
10All the people on earth will see that you belong to Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you.
11Yahweh will give you great prosperity: many children, abundant livestock, and plentiful crops in the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors he would give you.
12Yahweh will open for you his rich storehouse in the heavens to send rain on your land at the proper time and to bless all your work. You will lend to many nations, but you will not need to borrow from them.
13Yahweh will make you the leader, not the follower. You will always be at the top and never at the bottom, if you listen to and obey the commands of Yahweh your God that I am giving you today,
14You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, either to the right or to the left, by going to serve other gods.
15But if you do not listen to Yahweh your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and rules that I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you.
16You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
17Your basket and your kneading bowl will be cursed.
18The children you have, the crops you grow, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock will be cursed.
19You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
20Yahweh will send curses, confusion, and punishment on everything you try to do, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of the evil you have done in abandoning me.
21Yahweh will make diseases cling to you until he has wiped you off the land you are entering to take possession of.
22Yahweh will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, inflammation, burning heat, drought, blight, and mildew. These will pursue you until you die.
23The sky above your head will be like bronze, and the ground beneath you will be like iron.
24Yahweh will make powder and dust rain down on your land from the sky, until you are destroyed.
25Yahweh will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack them from one direction, but flee in seven directions. You will be tossed around among all the kingdoms of the earth.
26Your dead body will be food for all the birds of the sky and the animals of the earth, and no one will be there to scare them away.
27Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with scabs, and with an itch that you cannot be healed from.
28Yahweh will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with confusion of mind.
29You will grope around at noon like a blind person in the dark. You will not succeed in any of your ways. You will always be oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to save you.
30You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but you won't live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you won't get to use its fruit.
31Your ox will be butchered right before your eyes, but you won't eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from you and never returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.
32Your sons and daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will watch, and fail with longing for them all day long, but you will be powerless to do anything.
33A nation you don't know will eat the crops of your land and all the results of your hard work. You will always be oppressed and crushed.
34The things you see with your eyes will drive you mad.
35Yahweh will strike your knees and legs with terrible, incurable boils, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
36Yahweh will lead you and the king you set over yourselves to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known. There, you will serve other gods made of wood and stone.
37You will become a horrifying example, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you.
38You will carry much seed out into the field, but gather little, because locusts will eat it.
39You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you won't drink their wine or harvest their grapes, because worms will eat them.
40You will have olive trees all over your land, but you won't be able to use their oil, because your olives will fall off.
41You will have sons and daughters, but they won't belong to you, because they will be taken captive.
42Locusts will eat all your trees and the crops from your land.
43Foreigners living among you will rise higher and higher above you, and you will sink lower and lower.
44He will lend money to you, but you won't lend to him. He will be in charge, and you will be subordinate.
45All these curses will come upon you, chase you down, and catch you until you are wiped out. This is because you didn't listen to Yahweh your God or obey his commands and rules that he gave you.
46These things will serve as a permanent warning sign and wonder for you and your descendants.
47Because you didn't serve Yahweh your God with joy and gladness of heart, even though you had an abundance of everything,
48you will therefore serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you. You will suffer from hunger, thirst, nakedness, and a lack of everything. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
49Yahweh will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, against you, swooping down like an eagle. It will be a nation whose language you won't understand,
50a nation with harsh faces, that shows no respect for the elderly and no mercy to the young.
51They will eat the produce of your livestock and the crops from your land until you are destroyed. They won't leave you any grain, new wine, or oil, any increase from your cattle, or any young from your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.
52They will surround and attack all your cities until your tall, fortified walls, in which you trusted, come crashing down throughout your entire land. They will attack all your cities throughout all the land that Yahweh your God has given you.
53You will eat your own children—the flesh of your sons and daughters whom Yahweh your God has given you—during the siege and terrible hardship your enemies inflict on you.
54The most gentle and sensitive man among you will look with hostility at his brother, at the wife he loves, and at the remaining children he has,
55refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children that he will eat, because he has nothing else left during the siege and hardship your enemy inflicts on you in all your cities.
56The most gentle and sensitive woman among you, who would not even dare to put the sole of her foot on the ground because of her sensitivity, will look with hostility at the husband she loves, at her son, and at her daughter,
57and at the baby she has just given birth to, and at the children she has. For she will secretly eat them because of the extreme lack of everything during the siege and hardship your enemy inflicts on you in your cities.
58If you do not carefully obey all the words of this law that are written in this book, and if you do not fear this glorious and awesome name, YAHWEH YOUR GOD,
59then Yahweh will make the plagues that come upon you truly terrifying. The plagues on your descendants will be severe, long-lasting, and include terrible and prolonged illnesses.
60He will bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
61Also, Yahweh will bring upon you every sickness and every plague not mentioned in this book of law, until you are destroyed.
62You will be left with very few people, even though you were once as numerous as the stars in the sky, because you did not listen to Yahweh your God.
63Just as Yahweh took delight in making you prosper and multiplying you, so Yahweh will take delight in causing you to perish and destroying you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
64Yahweh will scatter you among all people, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods made of wood and stone, gods that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known.
65Among these nations, you will find no peace or rest. Instead, Yahweh will give you a trembling heart, failing eyesight, and a soul filled with despair.
66Your life will constantly be in danger. You will live in fear day and night, with no certainty that you will survive.
67In the morning, you will say, "I wish it were evening!" And in the evening, you will say, "I wish it were morning!" This will be because of the terror in your heart and the dreadful things your eyes will see.
68Yahweh will bring you back to Egypt in ships, along a route I told you that you would never see again. There you will try to sell yourselves as male and female slaves to your enemies, but no one will buy you.