This edition follows the Hebrew versification; the traditional number is given in brackets.
The blessings of obedience
1Now if you carefully obey the voice of Yahweh your God, keeping and doing all his commandments that I am giving you today, Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of Yahweh your God: 3Blessed are you in the city, and blessed are you in the field. 4Blessed is the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your land, and the fruit of your livestock — the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. 5Blessed is your basket and your kneading bowl. 6Blessed are you when you come in, and blessed are you when you go out. 7Yahweh will cause the enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They will come out against you by one road, and flee before you by seven roads. 8Yahweh will command the blessing to be with you in your barns and in everything you put your hand to, and he will bless you in the land Yahweh your God is giving you. 9Yahweh will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and walk in his ways. 10Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of Yahweh, and they will be afraid of you. 11Yahweh will make you abound in prosperity — in the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your land — in the land Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you. 12Yahweh will open for you his good storehouse, the heavens, to give your land rain in its season and to bless everything your hand does; you will lend to many nations but borrow from none. 13Yahweh will make you the head and not the tail; you will be only at the top and never at the bottom, if you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am giving you today, and carefully keep and do them, 14and do not turn aside, to the right or to the left, from any of the words I am commanding you today, to follow other gods and serve them.
The curses of disobedience
15But if you do not obey the voice of Yahweh your God, carefully keeping and doing all his commandments and statutes that I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: 16Cursed are you in the city, and cursed are you in the field. 17Cursed is your basket and your kneading bowl. 18Cursed is the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land — the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. 19Cursed are you when you come in, and cursed are you when you go out. 20Yahweh will send against you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of the evil of your deeds — because you have forsaken me. 21Yahweh will make the plague cling to you until it has consumed you off the land you are entering to possess. 22Yahweh will strike you with wasting disease, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and the sword, with blight and mildew — they will pursue you until you perish. 23The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron. 24Yahweh will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed. 25Yahweh will let you be defeated before your enemies. You will go out against them by one road and flee before them by seven roads, and you will become an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26Your corpses will be food for every bird of the sky and every beast of the earth, and no one will frighten them away. 27Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, festering sores, and the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28Yahweh will strike you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, 29and you will grope about at noon as a blind man gropes in the dark, and you will not succeed in anything you do. You will be constantly oppressed and robbed, with no one to save you. 30You will pledge a woman to be married, and another man will violate her. You will build a house and not live in it. You will plant a vineyard and never enjoy its fruit. 31Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be seized from before you and never returned. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you. 32Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will watch for them, day after day, growing weak with longing, but you will be powerless to help. 33A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and all you have labored for, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed, all your days. 34You will go mad from the sights your eyes see. 35Yahweh will strike you on the knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
Exile among nations you never knew
36Yahweh will drive you and the king you set over yourself to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods, of wood and stone. 37You will become an object of horror, a byword, and a taunt among all the peoples where Yahweh drives you. 38You will carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, because the locust will devour it. 39You will plant vineyards and tend them, but you will drink no wine and store up nothing, because the worm will eat it. 40You will have olive trees throughout your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, because your olives will drop off unripe. 41You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, for they will go into captivity. 42The whirring locust will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your land. 43The foreigner among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower. 44He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail. 45All these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh your God by keeping the commandments and statutes he gave you. 46They will remain a sign and a warning against you and your descendants forever.
Siege, hunger, and captivity
47Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with joy and gladness of heart out of the abundance of everything, 48you will serve the enemies Yahweh sends against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and utter want; he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like an eagle — a nation whose language you will not understand, 50a nation of fierce expression, that shows no regard for the old and no mercy to the young. 51It will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed, leaving you no grain, new wine, or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until it has wiped you out. 52It will besiege you within all your gates, throughout the land Yahweh your God has given you, until the high, fortified walls you trusted in come crashing down. 53In the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you. 54The most tender and delicate man among you will begrudge his own brother, the wife he embraces, and the children he still has left, 55refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his own children that he is eating, because nothing else remains to him — in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you within all your gates. 56The most tender and delicate woman among you, so delicate and tender she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces, and her own son and daughter, 57the afterbirth from between her legs and the children she bears, because in her utter want she will secretly eat them — in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts on you within your gates.
Plagues without end for breaking the covenant
58If you do not carefully do all the words of this law written in this book, and do not fear this glorious and awesome name, Yahweh your God, 59then Yahweh will bring extraordinary plagues on you and on your descendants — severe and lasting plagues, malignant and lasting sicknesses. 60He will bring back on you every disease of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61Yahweh will also bring upon you every other sickness and plague not written in this book of the law, until you are destroyed. 62You will be left few in number, though you were as numerous as the stars of the sky, because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh your God. 63Just as Yahweh once delighted in doing you good and multiplying you, so now Yahweh will delight in ruining and destroying you; you will be torn from the land you are entering to possess. 64Yahweh will scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods, of wood and stone, that neither you nor your fathers have known. 65Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There Yahweh will give you an anxious heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. 66Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be afraid night and day, never sure of your life. 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 that fills your heart and the sights your eyes see. 68Yahweh will send you back to Egypt in ships, by the way I said you would never see again, and there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, and no one will buy.
The covenant made in the land of Moab
69[29:1]These are the words of the covenant Yahweh commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he made with them at Horeb.
