Deuteronomy 27:14-28:68
The Levites will proclaim in a loud voice to every Israelite:‘ The person who makes a carved idol or cast image, which is detestable to the LORD, the work of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret is cursed.’ And all the people will reply,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who dishonors his father or mother is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who leads a blind person astray on the road is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who denies justice to a resident alien, a fatherless child, or a widow is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who sleeps with his father’s wife is cursed, for he has violated his father’s marriage bed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who has sexual intercourse with any animal is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who sleeps with his sister, whether his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who sleeps with his mother-in-law is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who secretly kills his neighbor is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ The one who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’‘ Anyone who does not put the words of this law into practice is cursed.’ And all the people will say,‘ Amen!’“ Now if you faithfully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all his commands I am giving you today, the LORD your God will put you far above all the nations of the earth.All these blessings will come and overtake you, because you obey the LORD your God:You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.Your offspring will be blessed, and your land’s produce, and the offspring of your livestock, including the young of your herds and the newborn of your flocks.Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.“ The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you from one direction but flee from you in seven directions.The LORD will grant you a blessing on your barns and on everything you do; he will bless you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he swore to you, if you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you bear the LORD’s name, and they will stand in awe of you.The LORD will make you prosper abundantly with offspring, the offspring of your livestock, and your land’s produce in the land the LORD swore to your ancestors to give you.The LORD will open for you his abundant storehouse, the sky, to give your land rain in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow.The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward if you listen to the LORD your God’s commands I am giving you today and are careful to follow them.Do not turn aside to the right or the left from all the things I am commanding you today, and do not follow other gods to worship them.“ But if you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all his commands and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overtake you:You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.Your offspring will be cursed, and your land’s produce, the young of your herds, and the newborn of your flocks.You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.The LORD will send against you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything you do until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of the wickedness of your actions in abandoning me.The LORD will make pestilence cling to you until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering to possess.The LORD will afflict you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, burning heat, drought, blight, and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.The sky above you will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.The LORD will turn the rain of your land into falling dust; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth, with no one to scare them away.“ The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, a festering rash, and scabies, from which you cannot be cured.The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and mental confusion,so that at noon you will grope as a blind person gropes in the dark. You will not be successful in anything you do. You will only be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will help you.You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit.Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will help you.Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes grow weary looking for them every day. But you will be powerless to do anything.A people you don’t know will eat your land’s produce and everything you have labored for. You will only be oppressed and crushed continually.You will be driven mad by what you see.The LORD will afflict you with painful and incurable boils on your knees and thighs— from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.“ The LORD will bring you and your king that you have appointed to a nation neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone.You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you.“ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because locusts will devour it.You will plant and cultivate vineyards but not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.You will have olive trees throughout your territory but not moisten your skin with oil, because your olives will drop off.You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will be taken prisoner.Buzzing insects will take possession of all your trees and your land’s produce.The resident alien among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower.He will lend to you, but you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.“ All these curses will come, pursue, and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commands and statutes he gave you.These curses will be a sign and a wonder against you and your descendants forever.Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joy and a cheerful heart, even though you had an abundance of everything,you will serve your enemies that the LORD will send against you, in famine, thirst, nakedness, and a lack of everything. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.The LORD will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you won’t understand,a ruthless nation, showing no respect for the old and not sparing the young.They will eat the offspring of your livestock and your land’s produce until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, fresh oil, young of your herds, or newborn of your flocks until they cause you to perish.They will besiege you within all your city gates until your high and fortified walls, that you trust in, come down throughout your land. They will besiege you within all your city gates throughout the land the LORD your God has given you.“ You will eat your offspring, the flesh of your sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you.The most sensitive and refined man among you will look grudgingly at his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children,refusing to share with any of them his children’s flesh that he will eat because he has nothing left during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you in all your towns.The most sensitive and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her refinement and sensitivity, will begrudge the husband she embraces, her son, and her daughter,the afterbirth that comes out from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you within your city gates.“ If you are not careful to obey all the words of this law, which are written in this scroll, by fearing this glorious and awe-inspiring name— the LORD, your God—he will bring wondrous plagues on you and your descendants, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.He will afflict you again with all the diseases of Egypt, which you dreaded, and they will cling to you.The LORD will also afflict you with every sickness and plague not recorded in the book of this law, until you are destroyed.Though you were as numerous as the stars of the sky, you will be left with only a few people, because you did not obey the LORD your God.Just as the LORD was glad to cause you to prosper and to multiply you, so he will also be glad to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be ripped out of the land you are entering to possess.Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.You will find no peace among those nations, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despondent spirit.Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be in dread night and day, never certain of survival.In 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 you will have in your heart and because of what you will see.The LORD will take you back in ships to Egypt by a route that I said you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
Leviticus 26:1-46
“ Do not make worthless idols for yourselves, set up a carved image or sacred pillar for yourselves, or place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the LORD your God.Keep my Sabbaths and revere my sanctuary; I am the LORD.“ If you follow my statutes and faithfully observe my commands,I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.Your threshing will continue until grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land.I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land.You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand; your enemies will fall before you by the sword.“ I will turn to you, make you fruitful and multiply you, and confirm my covenant with you.You will eat the old grain of the previous year and will clear out the old to make room for the new.I will place my residence among you, and I will not reject you.I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to live in freedom.“ But if you do not obey me and observe all these commands—if you reject my statutes and despise my ordinances, and do not observe all my commands— and break my covenant,then I will do this to you: I will bring terror on you— wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it.I will turn against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even though no one is pursuing you.“ But if after these things you will not obey me, I will proceed to discipline you seven times for your sins.I will break down your strong pride. I will make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,and your strength will be used up for nothing. Your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.“ If you act with hostility toward me and are unwilling to obey me, I will multiply your plagues seven times for your sins.I will send wild animals against you that will deprive you of your children, ravage your livestock, and reduce your numbers until your roads are deserted.“ If in spite of these things you do not accept my discipline, but act with hostility toward me,then I will act with hostility toward you; I also will strike you seven times for your sins.I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a pestilence among you, and you will be delivered into enemy hands.When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and ration out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.“ And if in spite of this you do not obey me but act with hostility toward me,I will act with furious hostility toward you; I will also discipline you seven times for your sins.You will eat the flesh of your sons; you will eat the flesh of your daughters.I will destroy your high places, cut down your shrines, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless bodies of your idols; I will reject you.I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.I also will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to live there will be appalled by it.But I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword to chase after you. So your land will become desolate, and your cities will become ruins.“ Then the land will make up for its Sabbath years during the time it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and make up for its Sabbaths.As long as it lies desolate, it will have the rest it did not have during your Sabbaths when you lived there.“ I will put anxiety in the hearts of those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a wind-driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as one flees from a sword, and fall though no one is pursuing them.They will stumble over one another as if fleeing from a sword though no one is pursuing them. You will not be able to stand against your enemies.You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you.Those who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away because of their iniquity; they will also waste away because of their ancestors’ iniquities along with theirs.“ But when they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors— their unfaithfulness that they practiced against me, and how they acted with hostility toward me,and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies— and when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will also remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.For the land abandoned by them will make up for its Sabbaths by lying desolate without the people, while they make amends for their iniquity, because they rejected my ordinances and abhorred my statutes.Yet in spite of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or abhor them so as to destroy them and break my covenant with them, since I am the LORD their God.For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God; I am the LORD.”These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws the LORD established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.
