Blessings and curses
1 Well now, if you obey in truth the voice of Yahweh, your God, practicing and observing all the commandments which I give you today, Yah weh, your God, shall raise you high above all the nations of the earth.
2 Then all these blessings shall reach you and come upon you for having obeyed the voice of Yahweh, your God:
3 Blessed shall you be in the city and in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, the young of your asses, the offspring of your cattle and sheep.
5 Blessed shall be your basket and your bowl of dough.
6 Blessed shall you be when you begin and when you finish.
7 Yahweh will bring down your enemies who rise against you, and put them at your feet. By one way they shall come out against you but by seven ways they shall flee from you.
8 Yahweh will order the blessing to be with you in your granaries and in your activities. He shall bless you in the land which Yahweh, your God, gives you.
9 Yahweh shall make you a holy people, as he has sworn, if you keep his commandments and follow in his ways.
10 Then all the nations of the earth shall see that you are under the pro tection of Yahweh and they will respect you.
11 Yahweh shall fill you with all kinds of good things, increasing the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your land which Yahweh promised on oath to your ancestors that he would give you.
12 Yahweh shall open the heavens for you, his rich treasury, to give rain in its season which your fields need, and he shall bless all that you plan to do. You shall lend to many nations but it shall not be necessary for you to borrow anything from them.
13 Yahweh will set you at the head of the nations and not at the tail; you shall always be on top and never below, if you fulfill the commandments of Yahweh, your God, which I com mand you today,
14 observing them and putting them into practice, without turning aside either to the right or to the left to follow and worship other gods.
15 But if you do not obey the voice of Yahweh, your God, and do not take care to practice all his commandments and norms which I com mand you today, all these curses shall come upon you:
16 Cursed shall you be in the city and in the field.
17 Cursed shall your granary be, and cursed shall your storage houses be.
18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your sheep.
19 Cursed shall you be in every thing you do, from beginning to end.
20 Yahweh will send misfortune, des truction and fear upon everything you do until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil deeds you have done in forsaking Yahweh.
21 He shall make pestilence cling to you until you disappear from the land which you are entering today to make it yours.
22 Yahweh will punish you with tuberculosis, fever, inflammation, fiery heat, wheat-smug and mildew that shall pursue you until you die.
23 The heavens above you shall be brass and the earth under you shall be iron.
24 Instead of rain, Yahweh shall make ashes and powder fall from heaven until you are destroyed.
25 Yahweh shall let you be defeated be fore your enemies. By one way you shall go out to fight them but by seven ways you shall flee from them. All the nations of the earth shall be horrified to see you.
26 Your dead bodies shall serve as food for all the birds of the air, and no one shall chase them away.
27 Yahweh shall strike you with the boils and plagues of Egypt, with tumors, scurvy and itch, from which you cannot be healed.
28 Yahweh shall punish you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind.
29 In the same way that the blind grope in darkness, so shall you grope in broad day light, and you shall not succeed. You shall always be oppressed and robbed, with no one to defend you.
30 You shall be engaged to marry a woman, but another man shall lie with her. You shall build a house but not live in it. You shall plant a vineyard but not eat its grapes.
31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before you but you shall not eat of it. Be fore your very eyes, you shall be robbed of your ass, which will never be recovered. Your sheep shall be turned over to your enemies, but no one shall come to defend you.
32 Your sons and daughters shall be handed over to foreign nations and you shall yearn for them continually but you will be unable to take action.
33 A people unknown to you shall eat the fruit of your fields, the fruit of all your toil. And you shall never cease to be ex ploited and oppressed all your life.
34 You shall be driven mad by what you see.
35 Yahweh will strike you with the most malignant boils on the knees and legs, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36 Yahweh will bring you and the king you have chosen to a nation which neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you shall serve other gods made of wood and stone.
37 All the nations to which Yahweh will bring you will be astonished, and will make you a by word and the butt of jokes.
38 You shall sow many seeds in your fields but shall harvest very little because the locusts shall devour them.
39 You shall plant and cultivate a vineyard but shall not drink wine or eat grapes because the worms shall devour them.
40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but they shall not give you even a drop of oil to anoint yourself, for the olives shall drop off and rot.
41 You shall have sons and daughters but they shall not be yours for they shall be taken into captivity.
42 All your trees and all the produce of your land shall be infested with insects.
43 The foreigner who lives with you shall prosper every day at your expense as you become poorer.
44 He shall lend to you and you shall have to borrow; he shall always be the head and you the tail.
45 All these curses shall fall upon you, pursue you and oppress you until all of you perish, for you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh, your God, or obey the commandments and the norms which he gave you.
46 These shall be forever upon you and your descendants as an awesome sign.
47 For having not served Yahweh, your God, with joy and gladness of heart when you lacked nothing,
48 you shall serve the enemies Yahweh will send against you, while you go hungry, thirsty, naked and suffer all kinds of misery. They shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck until they have destroyed you all.
49 Yahweh shall make a nation from afar come against you, as swift as the eagle flies,
50 a nation whose language you do not understand, a cruel nation that does not show respect to the old or compassion to the young.
51 They shall consume the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land so that you perish, leaving you with no wheat or wine or oil or the young of your cattle and sheep until they finish you off.
52 They shall besiege you in all your cities until the highest and most fortified walls in which you placed your trust fall down throughout your land. You shall re main besieged within your cities through out the land which Yahweh, your God, will give you.
53 You shall eat the fruit of your body, the flesh of your sons and daughters which Yahweh has given you, in the siege and anguish to which your enemy will reduce you.
54 The most refined among you shall look with distrust at his brother, his wife and his children who are still alive
55 re fusing to share with them the flesh of his children that he is eating, because nothing is left to him during the siege and the anguish to which your enemy shall reduce you in your cities.
56 The most tender and delicate wo man among your people, so delicate and tender that she will not dare go barefoot, shall look with distrust at the husband of her heart, and also at her son and daughter.
57 She shall hide from them to eat the placenta from her womb and the children to whom she gave birth, for lack of any other food, when your enemy lays siege to your cities and reduces you to the most extreme misery.
58 If you do not put into practice all the words of this Law which are written in this book and do not fear that glorious and terrible Name, Yahweh, your God,
59 he will punish you, you and your descendants, with fearful plagues, severe and lasting plagues, malignant sicknesses and incurable diseases.
60 He will make all the plagues of Egypt fall upon you, which you were afraid of, and these shall cling to you.
61 Even more, Yahweh shall order all the diseases and plagues which are not recorded in this book of the Law to be with you until you are wiped out.
62 For not having obeyed the voice of Yahweh, your God, only a few of you will remain, although before, you were as numerous as the stars of the heaven.
63 So it shall happen, that in the same manner that it pleased Yahweh to do you good and to multiply you, it shall also please him to pur sue and destroy you. You shall be plucked off the land you are entering to conquer.
64 Yahweh shall scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.
65 In those nations, you shall not have peace or rest for the sole of your foot. There Yahweh shall give you a cowardly heart, swollen eyes and anxious soul by day and by night.
66 Your life shall be before you as a pendant that hangs on a thread, and you shall be in dread night and day.
67 In the morning you shall say: “Would it were evening!” but in the evening you shall say: “Would it were morning!” because of the fear that makes your heart tremble when you behold what your eyes see.
68 Yahweh shall bring you back to Egypt for your sin, in spite of what he said to you: “You shall not see it again.” There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves, but no man will buy you.”
69 These are the words of the Covenant which Yahweh commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the Covenant he made with them at Horeb.
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Comments Deuteronomy, Chapter 28
• 28.1 We often ask a priest to bless or “bap tize” a house, a boat, a piece of machinery, some new equipment. The word “to bless,” that is to say good things, combines different meanings:
– to give thanks to God from whom every good thing comes;
– to refer to the good that God thinks about this or that new acquisition or sign of progress; to describe all the benefits that can be derived from this house, this sewing machine, etc… for the human and spiritual development of a person or a group;
– to ask the Lord that we may use things according to his will; since it is the only way for us to obtain the good that may be expected from them.
Yahweh shall make you a holy people… Yah weh shall fill you… Yahweh shall open the heavens for you… Naturally, all of this is rea lized through the good use we make of things: we do not expect miracles. We do know that wonders can come through the poorest instruments.