March 5

Deuteronomy 28:15 — 29:29

        15 “And it must occur that if you will not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God by taking care to do all his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, all these maledictions must also come upon you and overtake you:

16 “Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the field.
        17 “Cursed will be your basket and your kneading trough.
        18 “Cursed will be the fruit of your belly and the fruitage of your ground, the young of your cattle and the progeny of your flock.
        19 “Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out.

20 “Jehovah will send upon you the curse, confusion and rebuke in every undertaking of yours that you try to carry out, until you have been annihilated and have perished in a hurry, because of the badness of your practices in that you have forsaken me. 21 Jehovah will cause the pestilence to cling to you until he has exterminated you from off the ground to which you are going to take possession of it. 22 Jehovah will strike you with tuberculosis and burning fever and inflammation and feverish heat and the sword and scorching and mildew, and they will certainly pursue you until you have perished. 23 Your skies that are over your head must also become copper, and the earth that is beneath you iron. 24 Jehovah will give powder and dust as the rain of your land. From the heavens it will come down upon you until you have been annihilated. 25 Jehovah will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. By one way you will go out against them, but by seven ways you will flee before them; and you must become a frightful object to all the earth’s kingdoms. 26 And your dead body must become food for every flying creature of the heavens and to the beast of the field, with no one to make [them] tremble.

27 “Jehovah will strike you with the boil of Egypt and piles and eczema and skin eruption, from which you will not be able to be healed. 28 Jehovah will strike you with madness and loss of sight and bewilderment of heart. 29 And you will indeed become one who gropes about at midday, just as a blind man gropes about in the gloom, and you will not make your ways successful; and you must become only one who is always defrauded and robbed, with no one to save you. 30 You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will rape her. You will build a house, but you will not dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not begin to use it. 31 Your bull slaughtered there before your eyes—but you will not eat any of it. Your ass taken in robbery from before your face—but it will not return to you. Your sheep given to your enemies—but you will have no savior. 32 Your sons and your daughters given to another people and your eyes looking on and yearning for them always—but your hands will be without power. 33 The fruitage of your ground and all your production a people will eat whom you have not known; and you must become one who is only defrauded and crushed always. 34 And you will certainly become maddened at the sight of your eyes that you will see.

35 “Jehovah will strike you with a malignant boil upon both knees and both legs, from which you will not be able to be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. 36 Jehovah will march you and your king whom you will set up over you to a nation whom you have not known, neither you nor your forefathers; and there you will have to serve other gods, of wood and of stone. 37 And you must become an object of astonishment, a proverbial saying and a taunt among all the peoples to whom Jehovah will lead you away.

38 “A lot of seed you will take out to the field, but little will you gather, because the locust will devour it. 39 Vineyards you will plant and certainly cultivate, but you will drink no wine and gather nothing in, because the worm will eat it up. 40 You will come to have olive trees in all your territory, but you will rub yourself with no oil, because your olives will drop off. 41 Sons and daughters you will bring forth, but they will not continue yours, because they will go off into captivity. 42 All your trees and the fruitage of your ground whirring insects will take in possession. 43 The alien resident who is in your midst will keep ascending higher and higher above you, while you—you will keep descending lower and lower. 44 He will be the one to lend to you, while you—you will not lend to him. He will become the head, while you—you will become the tail.

45 “And all these maledictions will certainly come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you have been annihilated, because you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. 46 And they must continue on you and your offspring as a sign and a portent to time indefinite, 47 due to the fact that you did not serve Jehovah your God with rejoicing and joy of heart for the abundance of everything. 48 And you will have to serve your enemies whom Jehovah will send against you with hunger and thirst and nakedness and the want of everything; and he will certainly put an iron yoke upon your neck until he has annihilated you.

49 “Jehovah will raise up against you a nation far away, from the end of the earth, just as an eagle pounces, a nation whose tongue you will not understand, 50 a nation fierce in countenance, who will not be partial to an old man or show favor to a young man. 51 And they will certainly eat the fruit of your domestic animals and the fruitage of your ground until you have been annihilated, and they will let no grain, new wine or oil, no young of your cattle or progeny of your flock, remain for you until they have destroyed you. 52 And they will indeed besiege you within all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you are trusting fall in all your land, yes, they will certainly besiege you within all your gates in all your land, which Jehovah your God has given you. 53 Then you will have to eat the fruit of your belly, the flesh of your sons and your daughters, whom Jehovah your God has given you, because of the tightness and stress with which your enemy will hem you in.

54 “As for the very delicate and dainty man among you, his eye will be evil-inclined toward his brother and his cherished wife and the remainder of his sons whom he has remaining, 55 so as not to give one of them any of the flesh of his sons that he will eat, because he has nothing at all remaining to him because of the tightness and stress with which your enemy will hem you in within all your gates. 56 As for the delicate and dainty woman among you who never attempted to set the sole of her foot upon the earth for being of dainty habit and for delicateness, her eye will be evil-inclined toward her cherished husband and her son and her daughter, 57 even toward her afterbirth that comes out from between her legs and toward her sons whom she proceeded to bear, because she will eat them in secrecy for the want of everything because of the tightness and stress with which your enemy will hem you in within your gates.

58 “If you will not take care to carry out all the words of this law that are written in this book so as to fear this glorious and fear-inspiring name, even Jehovah, your God, 59 Jehovah also will certainly make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring especially severe, great and long-lasting plagues, and malignant and long-lasting sicknesses. 60 And he will indeed bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt before which you got scared, and they will certainly hang onto you. 61 Also, any sickness and any plague that is not written in the book of this law, Jehovah will bring them upon you until you have been annihilated. 62 And YOU will indeed be left with very few in number, although YOU have become like the stars of the heavens for multitude, because you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God.

63 “And it must occur that just as Jehovah exulted over YOU to do YOU good and to multiply YOU, so Jehovah will exult over YOU to destroy YOU and to annihilate YOU; and YOU will simply be torn away from off the soil to which you are going to take possession of it.

64 “And Jehovah will certainly scatter you among all the peoples from the one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, and there you will have to serve other gods whom you have not known, neither you nor your forefathers, wood and stone. 65 And among those nations you will have no ease, nor will there prove to be any resting-place for the sole of your foot; and Jehovah will indeed give you there a trembling heart and a failing of the eyes and despair of soul. 66 And you will certainly be in the greatest peril for your life and be in dread night and day, and you will not be sure of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If it only were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If it only were morning!’ because of the dread of your heart with which you will be in dread and because of the sight of your eyes that you will see. 68 And Jehovah will certainly bring you back to Egypt by ships by the way about which I have said to you, ‘You will never see it again,’ and YOU will have to sell yourselves there to your enemies as slave men and maidservants, but there will be no buyer.”

29 These are the words of the covenant that Jehovah commanded Moses to conclude with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab aside from the covenant that he had concluded with them in Horeb.

2 And Moses proceeded to call all Israel and to say to them: “YOU were the ones seeing all that Jehovah did before YOUR eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land, 3 the great provings that your eyes saw, those great signs and miracles. 4 And yet Jehovah has not given YOU a heart to know and eyes to see and ears to hear down to this day. 5 ‘While I kept guiding YOU forty years in the wilderness, YOUR garments did not wear out upon YOU, and your sandal did not wear out upon your foot. 6 Bread YOU did not eat, and wine and intoxicating liquor YOU did not drink, in order that YOU might know that I am Jehovah YOUR God.’ 7 Eventually YOU came to this place, and Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan proceeded to come out to meet us in battle, but we defeated them. 8 After that we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites and the Gadites and half the tribe of the Manassites. 9 So YOU must keep the words of this covenant and do them, in order that YOU may make everything YOU will do turn out well.

10 “YOU are all of YOU stationed today before Jehovah YOUR God, the heads of YOUR tribes, YOUR older men and YOUR officers, every man of Israel, 11 YOUR little ones, YOUR wives, and your alien resident who is in the midst of your camp, from the gatherer of your wood to the drawer of your water, 12 in order for you to enter into the covenant of Jehovah your God and his oath, which Jehovah your God is concluding with you today; 13 for the purpose of establishing you today as his people and that he may prove himself your God, just as he has promised you and just as he has sworn to your forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

14 “Now it is not with YOU alone that I am concluding this covenant and this oath, 15 but it is with him who is here standing with us today before Jehovah our God and with those who are not here with us today; 16 (for YOU yourselves well know how we dwelt in the land of Egypt and how we passed through the midst of the nations through whom YOU passed. 17 And YOU used to see their disgusting things and their dungy idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, that were with them;) 18 that there may not be among YOU a man or a woman or a family or a tribe whose heart is turning today away from Jehovah our God to go and serve the gods of those nations; that there may not be among YOU a root bearing the fruit of a poisonous plant and wormwood.

19 “And it must occur that when someone has heard the words of this oath, and he has blessed himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall come to have peace, although I shall walk in the stubbornness of my heart,’ with the intention of sweeping away the well-watered one along with the thirsty ones, 20 Jehovah will not want to forgive him, but then Jehovah’s anger and his ardor will smoke against that man, and all the oath written in this book will certainly settle down on him, and Jehovah will indeed wipe out his name from under the heavens. 21 So Jehovah will have to separate him for calamity from all the tribes of Israel in accord with all the oath of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.

22 “And the future generation, YOUR sons who will rise up after YOU, will be bound to say, also the foreigner who will come from a distant land, even [when] they have seen the plagues of that land and its maladies with which Jehovah has sickened it, 23 sulphur and salt and burning, so that its whole land will not be sown, nor sprout, nor will any vegetation spring up in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger and in his wrath; 24 yes, all the nations will be bound to say, ‘Why did Jehovah do like this to this land? Why the heat of this great anger?’ 25 Then they will have to say, ‘It was because they abandoned the covenant of Jehovah the God of their forefathers, which he concluded with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26 And they proceeded to go and serve other gods and to bow down to them, gods that they had not known and he had not apportioned to them. 27 Then Jehovah’s anger blazed against that land by bringing upon it the whole malediction written in this book. 28 Hence Jehovah uprooted them from off their soil in anger and rage and great indignation and threw them into another land as at this day.’

29 “The things concealed belong to Jehovah our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons to time indefinite, that we may carry out all the words of this law.