1   If you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all his commandments which I lay upon you this day, then the Lord your God will raise you high above all nations of the earth, 2   and all these blessings shall come to you and light upon you, because you obey the Lord your God:

3   A blessing on you in the city; a blessing on you in the country.

4   A blessing on the fruit of your body, the fruit of your land and of your cattle, the offspring of your herds and of your lambing flocks.

5   A blessing on your basket and your kneading-trough.

6   A blessing on you as you come in; and a blessing on you as you go out.

7   May the Lord deliver up the enemies who attack you and let them be put to rout before you. Though they come out against you by one way, they shall flee before you by seven ways.

8   May the Lord grant you a blessing in your granaries and in all your labours; may the Lord your God bless you in the land which he is giving you.

9   The Lord will set you up his own holy people, as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and conform to his ways. 10   Then all people on earth shall see that the Lord has named you as his very own, and they shall go in fear of you. 11   The Lord will make you prosper greatly in the fruit of your body and of your cattle, and in the fruit of the ground in the land which he swore to your forefathers to give you. 12   May the Lord open the heavens for you, his rich treasure house, to give rain upon your land at the proper time and bless everything to which you turn your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; 13   the Lord will make you the head and not the tail: you shall be always at the top and never at the bottom, when you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which

Concluding charge of Moses I give you this day to keep and to fulfil. 14   You shall turn neither to the right nor to the left from all the things which I command you this day nor shall you follow after and worship other gods.

15   But if you do not obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all his commandments and statutes which I lay upon you this day, then all these maledictions shall come to you and light upon you:

16   A curse upon you in the city; a curse upon you in the country.

17   A curse upon your basket and your kneading-trough.

18   A curse upon the fruit of your body, the fruit of your land, the offspring of your herds and of your lambing flocks.

19   A curse upon you as you come in; and a curse upon you as you go out.

20   May the Lord send upon you starvation, burning thirst, and dysentery, ^note whatever you are about, until you are destroyed and quickly perish for your evil doings, because you have forsaken me.

21   May the Lord cause pestilence to haunt you until he has exterminated you out of the land which you are entering to occupy; 22   may the Lord afflict you with wasting disease and recurrent fever, ague and eruptions; with drought, black blight and red; and may these plague you until you perish. 23   May the skies above you be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. 24   May the Lord turn the rain upon your country into fine sand, and may dust come down upon you from the sky until you are blotted out.

25   May the Lord put you to rout before the enemy. Though you go out against them by one way, you shall flee before them by seven ways. 26   May you be repugnant to all the kingdoms on earth. May your bodies become food for the birds of the air and the wild beasts, with no man to scare them away.

27   May the Lord strike you with Egyptian boils and with tumours, ^note scabs, and itches, for which you will find no cure. 28   May the Lord strike you with madness, blindness, and bewilderment; 29   so that you will grope about in broad daylight, just as a blind man gropes in darkness, and you will fail to find your way. You will also be oppressed and robbed, day in, day out, with no one to save you. 30   A woman will be pledged to you, but another shall ravish her; you will build a house but not live in it; you will plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit. 31   Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it; and before your eyes your ass will be stolen and will not come back to you; your sheep will be given to the enemy, and there will be no one to recover them. 32   Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on; your eyes will strain after them all day long, and you will

Concluding charge of Moses be powerless. 33   A nation whom you do not know shall eat the fruit of your land and all your toil, and your lot will be nothing but brutal oppression. 34    35   The sights you see will drive you mad. May the Lord strike you on knee and leg with malignant boils for which you will find no cure; they will spread from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. 36   May the Lord give you up, you and the king whom you have appointed, to a nation whom neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37   You will become a horror, a byword, and an object-lesson to all the peoples amongst whom the Lord disperses you.

38   You will carry out seed for your fields in plenty, but you will harvest little; for the locusts will devour it. 39   You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes; for the grub will eat them. 40   You will have olive-trees all over your territory, but you will not anoint yourselves with their oil; for your olives will drop off. 41   You will bear sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours because they will be taken into captivity. 42   All your trees and the fruit of the ground will be infested with the mole-cricket. 43   The alien who lives with you will raise himself higher and higher, and you will sink lower and lower. 44   He will lend to you but you will not lend to him: he will be the head and you the tail.

45   All these maledictions will come upon you; they will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the Lord your God by keeping the commandments and statutes which he gave you. 46   They shall be a sign and a portent to you and your descendants for ever, 47   because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and with a glad heart for all your blessings. 48   Then in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and extreme want, you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, and they will put a yoke of iron on your neck when they have subdued you. 49   May the Lord raise against you a nation from afar, from the other end of the earth, who will swoop upon you like a vulture, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50   a nation of grim aspect with no reverence for age and no pity for the young. 51   They will devour the young of your cattle and the fruit of your land, when you have been subdued. They will leave you neither corn, nor new wine nor oil, neither the offspring of your herds nor of your lambing flocks, until you are annihilated. 52   They will besiege you in all your cities ^note until they bring down your lofty impregnable walls, those city walls throughout your land in which you trust. They will besiege you within all your cities, throughout the land which the Lord your God has given you. 53   Then you will eat your own children, ^note the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you,

Concluding charge of Moses because of the dire straits to which you will be reduced when your enemy besieges you. 54   The pampered, delicate man will not share with his brother, or the wife of his bosom, or his own remaining children, any of the meat which he is eating, the flesh of his own children. 55   He is left with nothing else because of the dire straits to which you will be reduced when your enemy besieges you within your cities. 56   The pampered, delicate woman, the woman who has never even tried to put a foot to the ground, so delicate and pampered she is, will not share 57   with her own husband or her son or her daughter the afterbirth which she expels, or any boy or girl that she may bear. She will herself eat them secretly in her extreme want, because of the dire straits to which you will be reduced when your enemy besieges you within your cities.

58   If you do not observe and fulfil all the law written down in this book, if you do not revere this honoured and dreaded name, this name ‘the Lord ^note your God’, 59   then the Lord will strike you and your descendants with unimaginable plagues, malignant and persistent, and with sickness, persistent and severe. 60   He will bring upon you once again all the diseases of Egypt which you dread, and they will cling to you. 61   The Lord will bring upon you sickness and plague of every kind not written down in this book of the law, until you are destroyed. 62   Then you who were countless as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. 63   Just as the Lord took delight in you, prospering and increasing you, so now it will be his delight to destroy and exterminate you, and you will be uprooted from the land which you are entering to occupy. 64   The Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods whom neither you have known nor your forefathers, gods of wood and stone. 65   Among those nations you will find no peace, no rest for the sole of your foot. Then the Lord will give you an unquiet mind, dim eyes, and failing appetite. 66   Your life will hang continually in suspense, fear will beset you night and day, and you will find no security all your life long. 67   Every morning you will say, ‘Would God it were evening!’, and every evening, ‘Would God it were morning!’, for the fear that lives in your heart and the sights that you see. 68   The Lord will bring you sorrowing back to Egypt by that very road of which I said to you, ‘You shall not see that road again’; and there you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves and slave-girls, but there will be no buyer.

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