Deuteronomy 27-30

1Then Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people: “Keep all the commandments I am giving you today.

2And on the day you cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, set up large stones and coat them with plaster.

3Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you.

4And when you have crossed the Jordan, you are to set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I am commanding you today, and you are to coat them with plaster.

5Moreover, you are to build there an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones. You must not use any iron tool on them.

6You shall build the altar of the LORD your God with uncut stones and offer upon it burnt offerings to the LORD your God.

7There you are to sacrifice your peace offerings, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God.

8And you shall write distinctly upon these stones all the words of this law.”

9Then Moses and the Levitical priests spoke to all Israel: “Be silent, O Israel, and listen! This day you have become the people of the LORD your God.

10You shall therefore obey the voice of the LORD your God and follow His commandments and statutes I am giving you today.”

11On that day Moses commanded the people:

12“When you have crossed the Jordan, these tribes shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.

13And these tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal to deliver the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

14Then the Levites shall proclaim in a loud voice to every Israelite:

15‘Cursed is the man who makes a carved idol or molten image—an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of a craftsman—and sets it up in secret.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

16‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

17‘Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

18‘Cursed is he who lets a blind man wander in the road.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

19‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

20‘Cursed is he who sleeps with his father’s wife, for he has violated his father’s marriage bed.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

21‘Cursed is he who lies with any animal.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

22‘Cursed is he who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

23‘Cursed is he who sleeps with his mother-in-law.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

24‘Cursed is he who strikes down his neighbor in secret.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

25‘Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

26‘Cursed is he who does not put the words of this law into practice.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

1“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

2And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the LORD your God:

3You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

4The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock— the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

5Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.

6You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

7The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven.

8The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; the LORD your God will bless you in the land He is giving you.

9The LORD will establish you as His holy people, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.

10Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.

11The LORD will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

12The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

13The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today.

14Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the words I command you today, and do not go after other gods to serve them.

15If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

16You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.

18The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

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

20The LORD will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him.

21The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess.

22The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.

23The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.

24The LORD will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

25The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

26Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

27The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.

28The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind,

29and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.

30You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit.

31Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you.

32Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.

33A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.

34You will be driven mad by the sights you see.

35The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

36The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

37You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you.

38You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it.

39You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

40You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off.

41You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.

42Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

43The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower.

44He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

45All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you.

46These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.

47Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance,

48you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

49The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,

50a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.

51They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.

52They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you.

53Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.

54The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,

55refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates.

56The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter

57the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.

58If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—

59He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.

60He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.

61The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

62You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

63Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

64Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

65Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

66So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival.

67In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.

68The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

1These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant He had made with them at Horeb.

2Moses summoned all Israel and proclaimed to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land.

3You saw with your own eyes the great trials, and those miraculous signs and wonders.

4Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

5For forty years I led you in the wilderness, yet your clothes and sandals did not wear out.

6You ate no bread and drank no wine or strong drink, so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.

7When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us in battle, but we defeated them.

8We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

9So keep and follow the words of this covenant, that you may prosper in all you do.

10All of you are standing today before the LORD your God—you leaders of tribes, elders, officials, and all the men of Israel,

11your children and wives, and the foreigners in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water—

12so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which He is making with you today, and into His oath,

13and so that He may establish you today as His people, and He may be your God as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

14I am making this covenant and this oath not only with you,

15but also with those who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God, as well as with those who are not here today.

16For you yourselves know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we passed through the nations on the way here.

17You saw the abominations and idols among them made of wood and stone, of silver and gold.

18Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit,

19because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

20The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven

21and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

22Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it.

23All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger.

24So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

25And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

26They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them.

27Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against this land, and He brought upon it every curse written in this book.

28The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

29The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

1“When all these things come upon you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you,

2and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey His voice with all your heart and all your soul according to everything I am giving you today,

3then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you.

4Even if you have been banished to the farthest horizon, He will gather you and return you from there.

5And the LORD your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will take possession of it. He will cause you to prosper and multiply more than your fathers.

6The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

7Then the LORD your God will put all these curses upon your enemies who hate you and persecute you.

8And you will again obey the voice of the LORD and follow all His commandments I am giving you today.

9So the LORD your God will make you abound in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land. Indeed, the LORD will again delight in your prosperity, as He delighted in that of your fathers,

10if you obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

11For this commandment I give you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.

12It is not in heaven, that you should need to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it for us and proclaim it, that we may obey it?’

13And it is not beyond the sea, that you should need to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us and proclaim it, that we may obey it?’

14But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it.

15See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, as well as death and disaster.

16For I am commanding you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and increase, and the LORD your God may bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

17But if your heart turns away and you do not listen, but are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,

18I declare to you today that you will surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

19I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live,

20and that you may love the LORD your God, obey Him, and hold fast to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”