From earliest times, the prophets who preceded you and me invariably prophesied war, disaster, and plagues against many countries and great kingdoms.

从古以来，在你我以前的先知，向多国和大邦说预言，论到争战、灾祸、瘟疫的事。

从古以来，在你我以前的众先知，向多国和大邦说预言，论到战争、灾祸、瘟疫的事。

从古以来，在你我以前的众先知，向多国和大邦说预言，论到战争、灾祸、瘟疫的事。

在你我之前的古代先知曾预言许多地方和强国要遭遇战争、灾祸和瘟疫。

自古以来，在你我以前的先知，已经预言有战争、灾祸和瘟疫要临到许多地方和强国。

從古以來，在你我以前的先知，向多國和大邦說預言，論到爭戰、災禍、瘟疫的事。

從古以來，在你我以前的眾先知，向多國和大邦說預言，論到戰爭、災禍、瘟疫的事。

從古以來，在你我以前的眾先知，向多國和大邦說預言，論到戰爭、災禍、瘟疫的事。

在你我之前的古代先知曾預言許多地方和強國要遭遇戰爭、災禍和瘟疫。

自古以來，在你我以前的先知，已經預言有戰爭、災禍和瘟疫要臨到許多地方和強國。

從古以來、你我以前的神言人向許多地區許多大國傳神言、都是論到戰爭、災禍、或瘟疫的。

爾我以前之先知、自古對多國大邦、預言戰爭、災害疫癘、

粵稽古昔、爾我之前、有先知、或言眾國大邦、必遇戰鬥、遘災害、罹疫癘、

自亙古以來、爾我前之先知、言諸國與大邦未來之事、有先知預言將有爭戰、災害、瘟疫、

From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms.

There have been prophets long before you and I were ever born. They have prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms. They have spoken about war, trouble and plague.

The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms.

The ancient prophets who preceded you and me spoke against many nations, always warning of war, disaster, and disease.

The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, disaster, and plague against many lands and great kingdoms.

The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times also prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms regarding war, disaster, and plague.

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms— of war and disaster and pestilence.

The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.

The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, disaster, and plague against many lands and great kingdoms.

The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, of evil, and of pestilence.

Amos said:“ The LORD comes roaring out of Zion; from Jerusalem he comes bellowing! The shepherds’ pastures wilt; the summit of Carmel withers.”

Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab,“ As certainly as the LORD God of Israel lives( whom I serve), there will be no dew or rain in the years ahead unless I give the command.”

Go, tell Jeroboam,‘ This is what the LORD God of Israel says:“ I raised you up from among the people and made you ruler over my people Israel.I tore the kingdom away from the Davidic dynasty and gave it to you. But you are not like my servant David, who kept my commandments and followed me wholeheartedly by doing only what I approve.You have sinned more than all who came before you. You went and angered me by making other gods, formed out of metal; you have completely disregarded me.So I am ready to bring disaster on the dynasty of Jeroboam. I will cut off every last male belonging to Jeroboam in Israel, including even the weak and incapacitated. I will burn up the dynasty of Jeroboam, just as one burns manure until it is completely consumed.Dogs will eat the members of your family who die in the city, and the birds of the sky will eat the ones who die in the country.”’ Indeed, the LORD has announced it!“ As for you, get up and go home. When you set foot in the city, the boy will die.All Israel will mourn him and bury him. He is the only one in Jeroboam’s family who will receive a decent burial, for he is the only one in whom the LORD God of Israel found anything good.The LORD will raise up a king over Israel who will cut off Jeroboam’s dynasty. It is ready to happen!The LORD will attack Israel, making it like a reed that sways in the water. He will remove Israel from this good land he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they angered the LORD by making Asherah poles.

I will sing to my love– a song to my lover about his vineyard. My love had a vineyard on a fertile hill.He built a hedge around it, removed its stones, and planted a vine. He built a tower in the middle of it, and constructed a winepress. He waited for it to produce edible grapes, but it produced sour ones instead.So now, residents of Jerusalem, people of Judah, you decide between me and my vineyard!What more can I do for my vineyard beyond what I have already done? When I waited for it to produce edible grapes, why did it produce sour ones instead?Now I will inform you what I am about to do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there.I will make it a wasteland; no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, and thorns and briers will grow there. I will order the clouds not to drop any rain on it.Indeed Israel is the vineyard of the LORD who commands armies, the people of Judah are the cultivated place in which he took delight. He waited for justice, but look what he got– disobedience! He waited for fairness, but look what he got– cries for help!Those who accumulate houses are as good as dead, those who also accumulate landed property until there is no land left, and you are the only landowners remaining within the land.

But I am full of the courage that the LORD’s Spirit gives, and have a strong commitment to justice. This enables me to confront Jacob with its rebellion, and Israel with its sin.Listen to this, you leaders of the family of Jacob, you rulers of the nation of Israel! You hate justice and pervert all that is right.You build Zion through bloody crimes, Jerusalem through unjust violence.Her leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, her priests proclaim rulings for profit, and her prophets read omens for pay. Yet they claim to trust the LORD and say,“ The LORD is among us. Disaster will not overtake us!”Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed up like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the Temple Mount will become a hill overgrown with brush!

“ Get up, go down and meet King Ahab of Israel who lives in Samaria. He is at the vineyard of Naboth; he has gone down there to take possession of it.Say to him,‘ This is what the LORD says:“ Haven’t you committed murder and taken possession of the property of the deceased?”’ Then say to him,‘ This is what the LORD says:“ In the spot where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood they will also lick up your blood– yes, yours!”’”When Elijah arrived, Ahab said to him,“ So, you have found me, my enemy!” Elijah replied,“ I have found you, because you are committed to doing evil in the sight of the LORD.The LORD says,‘ Look, I am ready to bring disaster on you. I will destroy you and cut off every last male belonging to Ahab in Israel, including even the weak and incapacitated.I will make your dynasty like those of Jeroboam son of Nebat and Baasha son of Ahijah because you angered me and made Israel sin.’The LORD says this about Jezebel,‘ Dogs will devour Jezebel by the outer wall of Jezreel.’As for Ahab’s family, dogs will eat the ones who die in the city, and the birds of the sky will eat the ones who die in the country.”

( 4: 1) For look! In those days and at that time I will return the exiles to Judah and Jerusalem.Then I will gather all the nations, and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. I will enter into judgment against them there concerning my people Israel who are my inheritance, whom they scattered among the nations. They partitioned my land,and they cast lots for my people. They traded a boy for a prostitute; they sold a little girl for wine so they could drink.Why are you doing these things to me, Tyre and Sidon? Are you trying to get even with me, land of Philistia? I will very quickly repay you for what you have done!For you took my silver and my gold and brought my precious valuables to your own palaces.You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks, removing them far from their own country.Look! I am rousing them from that place to which you sold them. I will repay you for what you have done!I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah. They will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away. Indeed, the LORD has spoken!Proclaim this among the nations:“ Prepare for a holy war! Call out the warriors! Let all these fighting men approach and attack!Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears! Let the weak say,‘ I too am a warrior!’Lend your aid and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves to that place.” Bring down, O LORD, your warriors!

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will surely and swiftly be removed from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be annihilated.Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you among the nations where the LORD will drive you.

The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat,“ There is still one man through whom we can seek the LORD’s will. But I despise him because he does not prophesy prosperity for me, but disaster. His name is Micaiah son of Imlah. Jehoshaphat said,“ The king should not say such things.”

Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, they will not look with pity on children.

“‘ If, however, you do not obey me and keep all these commandments–if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep all my commandments and you break my covenant–I for my part will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it.I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.“‘ If, in spite of all these things, you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins.I will break your strong pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze.Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land will not produce their fruit.“‘ If you walk in hostility against me and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction seven times according to your sins.I will send the wild animals against you and they will bereave you of your children, annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population so that your roads will become deserted.“‘ If in spite of these things you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me,I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you seven times on account of your sins.I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. Although you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands.When I break off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied.“‘ If in spite of this you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me,I will walk in hostile rage against you and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins.You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you.I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas.I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled.I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.“‘ Then the land will make up for its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths.All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you lived on it.“‘ As for the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer.They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand for you before your enemies.You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you.“‘ As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ iniquities which are with them.However, when they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, by which they also walked in hostility against me( and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for their iniquity,I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.The land will be abandoned by them in order that it may make up for its Sabbaths while it is made desolate without them, and they will make up for their iniquity because they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred my statutes.In spite of this, however, when they are in the land of their enemies I will not reject them and abhor them to make a complete end of them, to break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God.I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD.’”These are the statutes, regulations, and instructions which the LORD established between himself and the Israelites at Mount Sinai through Moses.

He said,“ Go and tell these people:‘ Listen continually, but don’t understand! Look continually, but don’t perceive!’Make the hearts of these people calloused; make their ears deaf and their eyes blind! Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.”I replied,“ How long, sovereign master?” He said,“ Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,and the LORD has sent the people off to a distant place, and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned.

The oracle against Nineveh; the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite:The LORD is a zealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and very angry. The LORD takes vengeance against his foes; he sustains his rage against his enemies.The LORD is slow to anger but great in power; the LORD will certainly not allow the wicked to go unpunished. He marches out in the whirlwind and the raging storm; dark storm clouds billow like dust under his feet.

Listen to this, you elders; pay attention, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life or in the lifetime of your ancestors?Tell your children about it, have your children tell their children, and their children the following generation.What the gazam-locust left the‘ arbeh-locust consumed, what the‘ arbeh-locust left the yeleq-locust consumed, and what the yeleq-locust left the hasil-locust consumed!Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, because the sweet wine has been taken away from you.For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.They have destroyed our vines; they have turned our fig trees into mere splinters. They have completely stripped off the bark and thrown them aside; the twigs are stripped bare.Wail like a young virgin clothed in sackcloth, lamenting the death of her husband-to-be.No one brings grain offerings or drink offerings to the temple of the LORD anymore. So the priests, those who serve the LORD, are in mourning.The crops of the fields have been destroyed. The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished. The fresh wine has dried up; the olive oil languishes.Be distressed, farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.The vine has dried up; the fig tree languishes– the pomegranate, date, and apple as well. In fact, all the trees of the field have dried up. Indeed, the joy of the people has dried up!Get dressed and lament, you priests! Wail, you who minister at the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God, because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings to the temple of your God anymore.Announce a holy fast; proclaim a sacred assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the temple of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.How awful that day will be! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer.Our food has been cut off right before our eyes! There is no longer any joy or gladness in the temple of our God!The grains of seed have shriveled beneath their shovels. Storehouses have been decimated and granaries have been torn down, for the grain has dried up.Listen to the cattle groan! The herds of livestock wander around in confusion because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering.To you, O LORD, I call out for help, for fire has burned up the grassy pastures, flames have razed all the trees in the fields.Even the wild animals cry out to you; for the river beds have dried up; fire has destroyed the grassy pastures.

Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the LORD our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit.When such a person hears the words of this oath he secretly blesses himself and says,“ I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” This will destroy the watered ground with the parched.The LORD will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger will rage against that man; all the curses written in this scroll will fall upon him and the LORD will obliterate his name from memory.The LORD will single him out for judgment from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law.The generation to come– your descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who will come from distant places– will see the afflictions of that land and the illnesses that the LORD has brought on it.The whole land will be covered with brimstone, salt, and burning debris; it will not be planted nor will it sprout or produce grass. It will resemble the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD destroyed in his intense anger.Then all the nations will ask,“ Why has the LORD done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger all about?”Then people will say,“ Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship.That is why the LORD’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses written in this scroll.So the LORD has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.”

Look, the LORD is ready to devastate the earth and leave it in ruins; he will mar its surface and scatter its inhabitants.Everyone will suffer– the priest as well as the people, the master as well as the servant, the elegant lady as well as the female attendant, the seller as well as the buyer, the borrower as well as the lender, the creditor as well as the debtor.The earth will be completely devastated and thoroughly ransacked. For the LORD has decreed this judgment.The earth dries up and withers, the world shrivels up and withers; the prominent people of the earth fade away.The earth is defiled by its inhabitants, for they have violated laws, disregarded the regulation, and broken the permanent treaty.So a treaty curse devours the earth; its inhabitants pay for their guilt. This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, and are reduced to just a handful of people.The new wine dries up, the vines shrivel up, all those who like to celebrate groan.The happy sound of the tambourines stops, the revelry of those who celebrate comes to a halt, the happy sound of the harp ceases.They no longer sing and drink wine; the beer tastes bitter to those who drink it.The ruined town is shattered; all of the houses are shut up tight.They howl in the streets because of what happened to the wine; all joy turns to sorrow; celebrations disappear from the earth.The city is left in ruins; the gate is reduced to rubble.This is what will happen throughout the earth, among the nations. It will be like when they beat an olive tree, and just a few olives are left at the end of the harvest.They lift their voices and shout joyfully; they praise the majesty of the LORD in the west.So in the east extol the LORD, along the seacoasts extol the fame of the LORD God of Israel.From the ends of the earth we hear songs– the Just One is majestic. But I say,“ I’m wasting away! I’m wasting away! I’m doomed! Deceivers deceive, deceivers thoroughly deceive!”Terror, pit, and snare are ready to overtake you inhabitants of the earth!The one who runs away from the sound of the terror will fall into the pit; the one who climbs out of the pit, will be trapped by the snare. For the floodgates of the heavens are opened up and the foundations of the earth shake.The earth is broken in pieces, the earth is ripped to shreds, the earth shakes violently.The earth will stagger around like a drunk; it will sway back and forth like a hut in a windstorm. Its sin will weigh it down, and it will fall and never get up again.At that time the LORD will punish the heavenly forces in the heavens and the earthly kings on the earth.They will be imprisoned in a pit, locked up in a prison, and after staying there for a long time, they will be punished.The full moon will be covered up, the bright sun will be darkened; for the LORD who commands armies will rule on Mount Zion in Jerusalem in the presence of his assembly, in majestic splendor.

But Jeshurun became fat and kicked, you got fat, thick, and stuffed! Then he deserted the God who made him, and treated the Rock who saved him with contempt.They made him jealous with other gods, they enraged him with abhorrent idols.They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about.You have forgotten the Rock who fathered you, and put out of mind the God who gave you birth.But the LORD took note and despised them because his sons and daughters enraged him.He said,“ I will reject them, I will see what will happen to them; for they are a perverse generation, children who show no loyalty.They have made me jealous with false gods, enraging me with their worthless gods; so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, with a nation slow to learn I will enrage them.For a fire has been kindled by my anger, and it burns to lowest Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and ignites the foundations of the mountains.I will increase their disasters, I will use up my arrows on them.They will be starved by famine, eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; I will send the teeth of wild animals against them, along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.The sword will make people childless outside, and terror will do so inside; they will destroy both the young man and the virgin, the infant and the gray-haired man.“ I said,‘ I want to cut them in pieces. I want to make people forget they ever existed.But I fear the reaction of their enemies, for their adversaries would misunderstand and say,“ Our power is great, and the LORD has not done all this!”’They are a nation devoid of wisdom, and there is no understanding among them.I wish that they were wise and could understand this, and that they could comprehend what will happen to them.”How can one man chase a thousand of them, and two pursue ten thousand; unless their Rock had delivered them up, and the LORD had handed them over?For our enemies’ rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.For their vine is from the stock of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes contain venom, their clusters of grapes are bitter.Their wine is snakes’ poison, the deadly venom of cobras.“ Is this not stored up with me?” says the LORD,“ Is it not sealed up in my storehouses?I will get revenge and pay them back at the time their foot slips; for the day of their disaster is near, and the impending judgment is rushing upon them!”The LORD will judge his people, and will change his plans concerning his servants; when he sees that their power has disappeared, and that no one is left, whether confined or set free.He will say,“ Where are their gods, the rock in whom they sought security,who ate the best of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise and help you; let them be your refuge!“ See now that I, indeed I, am he!” says the LORD,“ and there is no other god besides me. I kill and give life, I smash and I heal, and none can resist my power.For I raise up my hand to heaven, and say,‘ As surely as I live forever,I will sharpen my lightning- like sword, and my hand will grasp hold of the weapon of judgment; I will execute vengeance on my foes, and repay those who hate me!I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh– the blood of the slaughtered and captured, the chief of the enemy’s leaders!’”Cry out, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge his servants’ blood; he will take vengeance against his enemies, and make atonement for his land and people.Then Moses went with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song to the people.

“ But if you ignore the LORD your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force:You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field.Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed.Your children will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.“ The LORD will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you in everything you undertake until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me.The LORD will plague you with deadly diseases until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess.He will afflict you with weakness, fever, inflammation, infection, sword, blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish.The sky above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron.The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.“ The LORD will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off.The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed.The LORD will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you.You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it.Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you.Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it.As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.You will go insane from seeing all this.The LORD will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils– from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.The LORD will force you and your king whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there.You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the LORD will drive you.“ You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it.You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them.You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe.You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity.Whirring locusts will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil.The foreigners who reside among you will become higher and higher over you and you will become lower and lower.They will lend to you but you will not lend to them; they will become the head and you will become the tail!All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the LORD your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given you.These curses will be a perpetual sign and wonder with reference to you and your descendants.“ Because you have not served the LORD your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have,instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you. They will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you.The LORD will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand,a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young.They will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, or lambs of your flocks until they have destroyed you.They will besiege all of your villages until all of your high and fortified walls collapse– those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the LORD your God has given you.You will then eat your own offspring, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege by which your enemies will constrict you.The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children.He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating( since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.Likewise, the most tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters,and will secretly eat her afterbirth and her newborn children( since she has nothing else), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.“ If you refuse to obey all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God,then the LORD will increase your punishments and those of your descendants– great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses.He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you.Moreover, the LORD will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, until you have perished.There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, because you will have disobeyed the LORD your God.This is what will happen: Just as the LORD delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess.The LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone.Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the LORD will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair.Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next.In the morning you will say,‘ If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say,‘ I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see.Then the LORD will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

A man of God came to Eli and said to him,“ This is what the LORD says:‘ Did I not plainly reveal myself to your ancestor’s house when they were in Egypt in the house of Pharaoh?I chose your ancestor from all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer sacrifice on my altar, to burn incense, and to bear the ephod before me. I gave to your ancestor’s house all the fire offerings made by the Israelites.Why are you scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? You have honored your sons more than you have me by having made yourselves fat from the best parts of all the offerings of my people Israel.’Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says,‘ I really did say that your house and your ancestor’s house would serve me forever.’ But now the LORD says,‘ May it never be! For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed!In fact, days are coming when I will remove your strength and the strength of your father’s house. There will not be an old man in your house!You will see trouble in my dwelling place! Israel will experience blessings, but there will not be an old man in your house for all time.

Then the LORD said to Moses,“ You are about to die, and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they are going. They will reject me and break my covenant that I have made with them.At that time my anger will erupt against them and I will abandon them and hide my face from them until they are devoured. Many disasters and distresses will overcome them so that they will say at that time,‘ Have not these disasters overcome us because our God is not among us?’

The LORD said to Samuel,“ Look! I am about to do something in Israel; when anyone hears about it, both of his ears will tingle.On that day I will carry out against Eli everything that I spoke about his house– from start to finish!You should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, and he did not rebuke them.Therefore I swore an oath to the house of Eli,‘ The sin of the house of Eli can never be forgiven by sacrifice or by grain offering.’”