Deuteronomy 28:13-44

13The Lord will make you the leaders of other people. You will not have to follow at the back. You will become more powerful, not weaker. But you must obey the commands of the Lord your God. I am telling you today, you must be very careful to do that.

14You must continue to obey all the commands that I am giving you today. Do not turn away from them to do anything else. Do not try to worship other gods.

15But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God, all these curses will happen to you. So be careful to obey all his commands and rules that I am giving you today. If you do not obey the Lord, these curses will happen to you:

16God will curse you in your cities and in your fields.

17God will curse you so that you have no grain to make bread.

18God will curse your children and the crops that you grow. Your cows and your sheep will not give birth to healthy babies.

19God will curse you in your homes and when you go outside.

20If you do evil things and you turn away from the Lord, he will curse you. He will confuse your thoughts in everything that you do. He will turn against you so that you quickly come to an end.

21The Lord will make you very ill so that you do not get better again. He will completely remove you from the land that you are now going into.

22The Lord will give you many kinds of disease. Your bodies will become weak and very hot. They will grow big and have a lot of pain. He will send great heat and there will be no rain. Your crops will all become spoiled. You will have all this pain until you die.

23There will be no clouds in the sky above to give any rain. The ground under your feet will be as hard as iron.

24There will be clouds of dust instead of rain. Dirt will come down from the sky until it has destroyed you.

25The Lord will let your enemies knock you down. You will attack them from one direction, but you will run away from them in seven directions. When the people of other nations see what has happened to you, they will see it is a terrible thing.

26Your dead bodies will be food for all the birds and the wild animals. No one will be there to chase them away.

27The Lord will cause you to have boils on your bodies. That is what he did to the Egyptians. He will also cause you to have tumours and other bad diseases on your skin. You will not be able to get well again.

28The Lord will make you crazy and blind. He will confuse your thoughts.

29Even at midday, you will not see your way. You will be in the dark, like a blind person. You will not be able to go anywhere, whatever you do. Every day, people will be cruel to you. People will rob you. No one will be there to save you.

30A woman will promise to marry you. But another man will take her and have sex with her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a garden, but you will never eat the fruit that grows in it.

31Someone will kill your bull while you watch. But you will not eat any of the meat. As you watch, someone will take your donkey from you. He will never give it back to you. Your enemies will take your sheep for themselves. There will be no one there to help you.

32Foreign people will take your children away to be their slaves. Every day, you will look for them to come back to you. But you will have no power to do anything.

33Strangers will eat the food that you have worked hard to grow in your fields. People will be cruel to you for the rest of your lives.

34When you see what is happening to you, you will become crazy.

35The Lord will cause you to have boils on your knees and on your legs. They will give you much pain and they will never get better. They will soon cover your whole body, from your toes to the top of your head.

36When you choose a king for yourselves, the Lord will send you and him away to a foreign country. It will be a place that neither you nor your ancestors have ever heard about. There you will serve gods that people have made from stone and wood.

37The Lord will send you away to live among foreign people. When they see what has happened to you, they will all see that it is terrible. They will tell stories about you and they will laugh at you.

38You will plant many seeds in your fields, but you will not have much food at harvest time. Instead, locusts will eat your crops.

39You will plant vineyards to grow grapes. You will take care of the plants. But you will not drink any wine or bring in any grapes. Instead, worms will eat them.

40Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will never use any oil from them. The olives will drop off the trees before they are ready to pick.

41You will give birth to sons and daughters, but you will lose them. Enemies will take them away as prisoners.

42Crowds of locusts will eat all your trees and the food from your fields.

43Foreign people who live among you will become stronger and stronger. They will have more and more power over you, as you become weaker.

44They will lend money to you, but you will not lend money to them. They will become your leaders. You will have to follow behind them.