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The Blessings at Mount Gerizim

aNow it shall be, if you diligently 1obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I am commanding you today, that the LORD your God bwill put you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings will come to you and areach you if you 1obey the LORD your God:

Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be ain the 1country.

Blessed will be the 1children of your womb, the 2produce of your ground, and the 3offspring of your animals: the newborn of your herd and the young of your flock.

Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

Blessed will you be awhen you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out.

“The LORD will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be 1defeated by you; they will go out against you one way and will flee at your presence seven ways. The LORD will command the blessing for you in your 1barns and in aeverything that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. aThe LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. 10 So all the peoples of the earth will see that 1ayou are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you. 11 aAnd the LORD will give you more than enough prosperity, in the 1children of your womb, in the 2offspring of your livestock, and in the 3produce 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 storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless every work of your hand; and ayou will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. 13 aAnd the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will only be above, and not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God which I am commanding you today, to 1follow them carefully, 14 and ado not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you today, to the right or the left, to pursue other gods to serve them.

Consequences of Disobedience

15 aBut it shall come about, if you do not 1obey the LORD your God, to be careful to 2follow all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16 aCursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the 1country.

17 aCursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

18 aCursed will be the 1children of your womb, the 2produce of your ground, the newborn of your herd, and the offspring of your flock.

19 aCursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.

20 aThe LORD will send against you curses, panic, and brebuke, in 1everything you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until cyou perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have abandoned Me. 21 aThe LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has eliminated you from the land where you are entering to take possession of it. 22 aThe LORD will strike you with consumption, inflammation, fever, feverish heat, and with 1the sword, bwith blight, and with mildew, and they will pursue you until cyou perish. 23 1The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24 aThe LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

25 aThe LORD will cause you to be defeated by your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways from their presence, and you will bbe an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 aYour dead bodies will 1serve as food for all birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

27 aThe LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt and with btumors, the festering rash, and with scabies, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The LORD will strike you with insanity, blindness, and with confusion of 1mind; 29 and you will be agroping about at noon, just as a person who is blind gropes in the darkness, and you will not be successful in your ways; but you will only be 1oppressed and robbed all the time, with no one to save you. 30 aYou will 1betroth a woman, but another man will 2violate her; byou will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not make use of its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey will be snatched away from you, and will not 1be restored to you; your 2sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. 32 aYour sons and your daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes look on and long for them constantly; but there will be nothing 1you can do. 33 aA people whom you do not know will eat the produce of your ground and every product of your labor, and you will never be anything but oppressed and mistreated continually. 34 You will also be driven insane by the sight of 1what you see. 35 aThe LORD will strike you on the knees and thighs with severe boils from which you cannot be healed, and strike you from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36 aThe LORD will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, made of bwood and stone. 37 And ayou will become an object of horror, a song of mockery, and an object of taunting among all the peoples where the LORD drives you.

38 aYou will bring out a great amount of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because bthe locust will devour it. 39 aYou will plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor bring in the harvest, because the worm will eat it. 40 aYou will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will drop off prematurely. 41 aYou will father sons and daughters but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. 42 aThe cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground. 43 aThe stranger who is among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower. 44 aHe will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; bhe will be the head, and you will be the tail.

45 “So all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you auntil you are destroyed, because you would not 1obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 And they will become aa sign and a wonder 1against you and your 2descendants forever.

47 aSince you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a cheerful heart, in gratitude for the abundance of all things, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, ain hunger, thirst, nakedness, and devoid of all things; and He bwill put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

49 aThe LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, bas the eagle swoops down; a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation 1with a defiant attitude, who will ahave no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. 51 Furthermore, it will eat the 1offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed; a nation that will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the newborn of your cattle or the young of your flock, until they have eliminated you. 52 aAnd it will besiege you in all your 1towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it will besiege you in all your 2towns throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you. 53 aThen you will eat the 1offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will 2oppress you. 54 The man who is 1refined and very delicate among you 2will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife 3he cherishes, and toward the rest of his children who are left, 55 so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the hardship by which your enemy will 1oppress you in all your 2towns. 56 aThe 1refined and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and tenderness, 2will be hostile toward the husband 3she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, 57 and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her 1legs, and toward her children to whom she gives birth, because ashe will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the hardship with which your enemy will 2oppress you in your 3towns.

58 If you are not careful to 1follow all the words of this Law that are written in this book, to 2afear this honored and awesome bname, 3the LORD your God, 59 then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and 1your descendants, 2severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. 60 aAnd He will bring back on you every disease of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which are not written in the book of this Law, the LORD will bring on you auntil you are destroyed. 62 Then you will be left few in 1number, awhereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not 2obey the LORD your God. 63 And it will come about that, just as the LORD arejoiced over you to be good to you, and make you numerous, so will the LORD brejoice over you to wipe you out and destroy you; and you will be ctorn away from the land which you are entering to possess. 64 Furthermore, the LORD will ascatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to 1the other; and there you will bserve other gods, made of wood and stone, which you and your fathers have not known. 65 aAmong those nations you will find no peace, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there bthe LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. 66 So your lives will be 1hanging in doubt before you; and you will be terrified night and day, and have no assurance of your life. 67 aIn the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And at evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the terror of your heart which you fear, and the sight of your eyes which you will see. 68 And the LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I said to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”