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Jeremiah 4:18
“ The army will attack you because of your conduct and actions. This is how you will be punished. It will be so bitter! It will cut deep down into your hearts!”
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Deuteronomy 28:15-68
But suppose you don’t obey the Lord your God. And you aren’t careful to obey all his commands and rules I’m giving you today. Then he will send curses on you. They’ll catch up with you. Here are those curses.You will be cursed in the cities. You will be cursed out in the country.Your baskets and bread pans will be cursed.Your children will be cursed. Your crops will be cursed. Your calves and lambs will be cursed.You will be cursed no matter where you go.The Lord will send curses on you. You won’t know what’s going on. In everything you do, he will be angry with you. You will be destroyed suddenly and completely. This will happen because you did an evil thing when you deserted the Lord.He will send all kinds of sicknesses on you. He’ll send them until he has destroyed you. He’ll remove you from the land you are entering to take as your own.The Lord will make you sick and very weak. He will strike you with fever and swelling. He’ll send burning heat. There won’t be any rain. The hot winds will completely dry up your crops. All those things will happen until you die.The sky above you will be like bronze. The ground beneath you will be like iron.The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder. It will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.The Lord will help your enemies win the battle over you. You will come at them from one direction. But you will run away from them in every direction. All the kingdoms on earth will be completely shocked when they see you.Birds and wild animals will eat up your dead bodies. There won’t be anyone left to scare them away.The Lord will send boils on you, just like the ones he sent on the Egyptians. You will have growths in your bodies and boils on your skin. You will itch all over. No one will be able to heal you.The Lord will make you lose your mind. He will make you blind. You won’t know what’s going on.Even at noon you will have to feel your way around like a blind person in the dark. You won’t have success in anything you do. Day after day you will be robbed and treated badly. No one will be able to save you.You and a woman will promise to marry each other. But another man will take her and rape her. You will build a house. But you won’t live in it. You will plant a vineyard. But you won’t eat a single grape from it.Your ox will be killed right in front of your eyes. But you won’t eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you by force. And you will never get it back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. No one will be able to save them.Your children will be given to another nation. Day after day you will watch for them to come back. But you will only wear out your eyes. You won’t be able to help your children.A nation you don’t know anything about will eat what you work to produce on your land. You will only be treated badly as long as you live.The things you see will make you lose your mind.The Lord will send painful boils on your knees and legs. No one will be able to heal them. They will cover you from head to toe.The Lord will drive you out of the land. And he will drive out the king you place over yourselves. All of you will go to another nation. You and your people of long ago didn’t know anything about them. There you will worship other gods. They will be made out of wood and stone.You will look very bad to all the nations where the Lord sends you. They will be completely shocked when they see you. They will mock you and make fun of you.You will plant many seeds in your field. But you will gather very little food. Locusts will eat it up.You will plant vineyards and take care of them. But you won’t drink the wine. You won’t gather the grapes. Worms will eat them up.You will have olive trees through your whole country. But you won’t use the oil. The olives will drop off the trees.You will have children. But you won’t be able to keep them. They’ll be taken away as prisoners.Large numbers of locusts will eat up the leaves on all your trees. They will also eat up the crops on your land.Outsiders who live among you will become your leaders. They will rise higher and higher. But you will sink lower and lower.They will lend money to you. But you won’t be able to lend money to them. They will be the leaders. But you will be the followers.The Lord your God will send all these curses on you. They will follow you everywhere. They’ll catch up with you. You will be under the Lord’ s curse until you are destroyed. That’s because you didn’t obey him. You didn’t keep the commands and rules he gave you.These curses will remain as signs and awful judgments against you and your children after you forever.You didn’t serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness when times were good.So he will send enemies against you. You will have to serve them. You will be hungry and thirsty. You will be naked and poor. The Lord will put the iron chains of slavery around your necks until he has destroyed you.The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away. It will come from the ends of the earth. It will dive down on you like an eagle. You won’t understand that nation’s language.Its people will look mean. They won’t have any respect for old people. They won’t show any kindness to young people.They will eat up the young animals among your livestock. They’ll eat up the crops on your land. They’ll destroy you. They won’t leave you any grain, olive oil or fresh wine. They won’t leave you any calves or lambs. They’ll destroy you.They’ll surround all the cities throughout your whole land. They’ll attack those cities until the high, strong walls you trust in fall down. That’s what will happen to the cities in the land the Lord your God is giving you.Your enemies will surround you and attack you. They will make you suffer greatly. So you will eat your own children. You will eat the dead bodies of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.There may be a gentle and caring man among you. But he will treat his own brother badly. He’ll be just as mean to the wife he loves and to any of his children who are still alive.He won’t give to a single one of them any part of the dead bodies of his children that he’s eating. It will be all he has left to eat. That’s how much your enemies will make you suffer when they surround all your cities and attack them.There may be a gentle and caring woman among you. She wouldn’t even touch the ground with her feet without first putting her sandals on. But she will not share anything with the husband she loves. She won’t share with her own children either.She will eat what comes out of her body after she has a baby. Then she’ll even eat her baby. She won’t share it with anyone in her family. In her great hunger she’ll plan to eat it in secret. There won’t be anything else for her to eat because the city she lives in will be surrounded. That’s an example of how much your enemies will make you suffer when they are attacking your cities.Be careful to follow all the words of this law. They are written in this scroll. Have respect for the glorious and wonderful name of the Lord your God. If you don’t,he will send terrible plagues on you and your children after you. He’ll send horrible and lasting troubles. He’ll make you very sick for a long time.He’ll bring on you all the sicknesses you were afraid of getting when you were in Egypt. You won’t be able to get rid of them.The Lord will also bring on you all other kinds of sickness and trouble. I haven’t even written those down in this Book of the Law. You will be destroyed.At one time you were as many as the stars in the sky. But there will only be a few of you left. That’s because you didn’t obey the Lord your God.It pleased the Lord to give you success and to cause there to be many of you. But it will please him just as much to wipe you out and destroy you. You will be removed from the land you are entering to take as your own.Then the Lord will scatter you among all the nations. He’ll spread you around from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship statues of gods made out of wood and stone. You and your people of long ago hadn’t known anything about those gods.Among those nations you won’t find any peace. There won’t be any place where you can make your home and rest your feet. The Lord will give you minds filled with worry. He’ll give you eyes worn out from looking for help. You won’t have any hope in your hearts.Your lives will always be in danger. You will be filled with fear night and day. You will never be sure you are safe.In the morning you will say,“ We wish it were evening!” In the evening you will say,“ We wish it were morning!” Your hearts will be filled with fear. The things you see will terrify you.The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships. He’ll send you on a journey I said you should never have to make again. You will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves in Egypt. But no one will buy you.
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Leviticus 26:15-46
Suppose you say no to my rules and turn away from my laws. And suppose you break my covenant by failing to carry out all my commands.Then here is what I will do to you. All at once I will bring terror on you. I will send sicknesses that will make you weak. I will send fever that will destroy your sight. It will slowly take your strength away. When you plant seeds, it will not do you any good. Instead, your enemies will eat what you have planted.I will turn against you. Then your enemies will win the battle over you. Those who hate you will rule over you. You will run away even when no one is chasing you.“‘ After all that, suppose you still will not listen to me. Then I will punish you for your sins seven times.I will break down your stubborn pride. I will make the sky above you like iron, and it will not rain. I will make the ground under you like bronze, and you will not be able to farm it.You will work with all your strength, but it will not do you any good. That is because your soil will not produce any crops. The trees of your land will not bear any fruit.“‘ Suppose you continue to be my enemy. And suppose you still refuse to listen to me. Then I will multiply your troubles many times because of your sins.I will send wild animals against you. They will kill your children. They will destroy your cattle. There will be so few of you left that your roads will be deserted.“‘ After all those things, suppose you still do not accept my warnings. And suppose you continue to be my enemy.Then I myself will be your enemy. I will make you suffer again and again for your sins.I will send war against you to punish you for breaking my covenant. When you go back into your cities, I will send a plague among you. You will be handed over to your enemies.I will cut off your supply of bread. Ten women will need only one oven to bake your bread. They will weigh out the bread piece by piece. Even when you eat all of it, it will not be enough to satisfy you.“‘ After all that, suppose you still do not listen to me. And suppose you continue to be my enemy.Then I will be angry with you. I will be your enemy. I myself will again punish you for your sins over and over.You will eat the dead bodies of your sons. You will also eat the dead bodies of your daughters.I will destroy the high places where you worship other gods. I will pull down your incense altars. I will pile up your dead bodies on the lifeless statues of your gods. And I will turn away from you.I will completely destroy your cities. I will destroy your places of worship. The pleasant smell of your offerings will not give me any delight.I myself will destroy your land so completely that your enemies who live there will be shocked.I will scatter you among the nations. I will pull out my sword and hunt you down. Your land and your cities will be completely destroyed.Then the deserted land will enjoy its sabbath years. It will rest. It will not be farmed. It will enjoy its sabbaths. But you will become prisoners in the country of your enemies.The land will rest the whole time it is deserted. It was not able to rest during the sabbaths you lived in it.“‘ Some of you will be left in the lands of your enemies. I will fill your hearts with fear. The sound of a leaf blown by the wind will scare you away. You will run as if you were escaping from swords. You will fall down, even though no one is chasing you.You will trip over one another as if you were running away from the battle. You will run away, even though no one is chasing you. You will not be able to stand and fight against your enemies.While you are still scattered among the nations, you will die. The lands of your enemies will destroy you.You who are left in those lands will become weaker and weaker. You will die because of your sins and the sins of your people who lived before you.“‘ But suppose you admit that both you and your people who lived before you have sinned. You admit the evil and dishonest things you have done against me. And you admit you have become my enemy.What you did made me become your enemy. I let your enemies take you into their land. But suppose you stop being stubborn. You stop being proud. And you pay for your sin.Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will remember my covenant with Isaac. I will remember my covenant with Abraham. I will remember what I said to them about the land.You will leave the land. It will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies deserted because you are not there. You will pay for your sins because you said no to my laws. You turned away from my rules.But even after all that, I will not say no to you or turn away from you. I will not destroy you completely in the land of your enemies. I will not break my covenant with you. I am the Lord your God.Because of you, I will remember the covenant I made with the people of Israel who lived before you. I brought them out of Egypt to be their God. The nations saw me do it. I am the Lord.’ ”These are the orders, the laws and the rules of the covenant the Lord made on Mount Sinai. He made it between himself and the Israelites through Moses.
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Jeremiah 2:13
“ My people have sinned twice. They have deserted me, even though I am the spring of water that gives life. And they have dug their own wells. But those wells are broken. They can’t hold any water.
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Jeremiah 2:19
You will be punished because you have sinned. You will be corrected for turning away from me. I am the Lord your God. If you desert me, bad things will happen to you. If you do not respect me, you will suffer bitterly. I want you to understand that,” announces the Lord who rules over all.
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Hosea 13:9
“ Israel, you will be destroyed. I helped you. But you turned against me.
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Numbers 32:23
“ But what if you fail to do your duty? Then you will be sinning against the Lord. And you may be sure that your sin will be discovered. It will be brought out into the open.
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Isaiah 1:4
How terrible it will be for this sinful nation! They are loaded down with guilt. They are people who do nothing but evil. They are children who are always sinning. They have deserted the Lord. They have turned against the Holy One of Israel. They have turned their backs on him.
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Deuteronomy 32:19
When the Lord saw this, he turned away from them. His sons and daughters made him angry.
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1 Chronicles 28 9
“ My son Solomon, always remember the God of your father. Serve him with all your heart. Do it with a mind that wants to obey him. The Lord looks deep down inside every heart. He understands every desire and every thought. If you look to him, you will find him. But if you desert him, he will turn his back on you forever.
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2 Chronicles 7 19-2 Chronicles 7 20
“ But suppose all of you turn away from me. You refuse to obey the rules and commands I have given you. And you go off to serve other gods and worship them.Then I will remove Israel from my land. It is the land I gave them. I will turn my back on this temple. I will do it even though I have set it apart for my Name to be there. I will make all the nations hate it. They will laugh and joke about it.
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Isaiah 63:11-14
Then his people remembered what he did long ago. They recalled the days of Moses and his people. They asked,“ Where is the God who brought Israel through the Red Sea? Moses led them as the shepherd of his flock. Where is the God who put his Holy Spirit among them?He used his glorious and powerful arm to help Moses. He parted the waters of the sea in front of them. That mighty act made him famous forever.He led them through that deep sea. Like a horse in open country, they didn’t trip and fall.They were like cattle that are taken down to the plains. They were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord.” That’s how he guided his people. So he made a glorious name for himself.
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Psalms 107:7
He led them straight to a city where they could make their homes.
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Psalms 136:16
Give thanks to the God who led his people through the desert. His faithful love continues forever.
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Deuteronomy 32:10
The Lord found Israel in a desert. He found them in an empty and windy land. He took care of them and kept them safe. He guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.
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Psalms 77:20
You led your people like a flock. You led them by the hands of Moses and Aaron.
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Job 4:8
Here’s what I’ve observed. People gather a crop from what they plant. If they plant evil and trouble, that’s what they will harvest.
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Psalms 78:53-54
He guided them safely, and they weren’t afraid. But the Red Sea swallowed up their enemies.And so he brought his people to the border of his holy land. He led them to the central hill country he had taken by his power.