The Blessings of Obedience
Deuteronomy 28, verse 1. “Now it shall come to pass, as you cross the Jordan to the land the Lord your God gives you, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to be careful and do all His commandments I command you today, then the Lord your God will set you high over all nations of the earth. Deuteronomy 28, verse 2. Then all these blessings shall come upon you and find you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God: Deuteronomy 28, verse 3. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Deuteronomy 28, verse 4. Blessed shall be the offspring of your womb, the produce of your ground and the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep. Deuteronomy 28, verse 5. Blessed shall be your storehouses and your reserves. Deuteronomy 28, verse 6. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. Deuteronomy 28, verse 7. May the Lord your God deliver your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. Deuteronomy 28, verse 8. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand in the land the Lord your God gives you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 9. “The Lord your God will establish you as a holy people to Himself, in the manner He swore to your fathers, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, and walk in His ways. Deuteronomy 28, verse 10. Then all nations of the earth shall see you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 11. So the Lord your God shall increase you in good things: in the fruit of your womb, in the produce of your ground, and in the offspring of your cattle in the land the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 12. The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heaven, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the works of your hands. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, and they shall not rule over you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 13. So the Lord your God will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only and not beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God I command you today to keep and do them. Deuteronomy 28, verse 14. You shall not transgress any of the words I command you this day to the right or the left, to go after different gods to serve them. Deuteronomy 28, verse 15. “But it shall be, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep and do all His commandments I command you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Deuteronomy 28, verse 16. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Deuteronomy 28, verse 17. Cursed shall be your storehouses and your reserves. Deuteronomy 28, verse 18. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land, and the herds of your oxen and the flocks of your sheep. Deuteronomy 28, verse 19. Cursed shall you be when you go out, and cursed shall you be when you come in. Deuteronomy 28, verse 20. “The Lord will send on you poverty, hunger, and consumption in all you set your hand to do, until He destroys you and lays you waste quickly, because of your evil habits in which you forsook Me. Deuteronomy 28, verse 21. The Lord will make death cling to you, until He consumes you from the land to which you are going as an inheritance. Deuteronomy 28, verse 22. The Lord will strike you with perplexity, fever, shivering, irritation, murder, blight, and mildew; these things shall pursue you until you perish. Deuteronomy 28, verse 23. The heaven over your head shall be brass, and the earth under you shall be iron. Deuteronomy 28, verse 24. May the Lord give dust as the rain of your land; and from heaven dirt shall come down on you until it wears you out and destroys you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 25. “May the Lord give you over to slaughter before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; and you shall be in dispersion among all the kingdoms of the earth. Deuteronomy 28, verse 26. Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. Deuteronomy 28, verse 27. The Lord will strike you with the sores of Egypt on the buttocks, with furious itching and scratching from which you cannot be healed. Deuteronomy 28, verse 28. The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. Deuteronomy 28, verse 29. You shall grope at noonday as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered all your days, and no one shall help you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 30. “You shall take a wife, but a different man shall have her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. Deuteronomy 28, verse 31. Your young bull shall be slaughtered before you, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to help you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 32. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to a different nation, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. Deuteronomy 28, verse 33. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be oppressed and crushed all the days. Deuteronomy 28, verse 34. So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. Deuteronomy 28, verse 35. The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe sores which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. Deuteronomy 28, verse 36. “The Lord will bring you and the rulers whom you set over you to a nation neither you nor your fathers knew, and there you shall serve different gods of wood and stone. Deuteronomy 28, verse 37. There you shall become an obscure saying, a proverb, and a tale among all nations where the Lord will bring you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 38. “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. Deuteronomy 28, verse 39. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor enjoy it; for the worm shall eat it. Deuteronomy 28, verse 40. You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. Deuteronomy 28, verse 41. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. Deuteronomy 28, verse 42. Blight shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. Deuteronomy 28, verse 43. The resident alien among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. Deuteronomy 28, verse 44. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. Deuteronomy 28, verse 45. “Moreover all these curses shall come upon and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed and wasted, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and ordinances which He commanded you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 46. So they shall be upon you as signs and wonders, and among your seed forever. Deuteronomy 28, verse 47. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a good heart, for the abundance of everything; Deuteronomy 28, verse 48. therefore, you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He destroys you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 49. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, Deuteronomy 28, verse 50. a nation ruthless in appearance which does not respect the elderly, nor is merciful to the young. Deuteronomy 28, verse 51. They shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the produce of your land; so as not to leave you grain, wine, or olive oil, or the herds of your oxen, or the flocks of your sheep, until they destroy you Deuteronomy 28, verse 52. and wipe you out in all your cities, until your high and fortified walls in which you trust come down throughout all your land; and He will afflict you in all your cities the Lord your God gave you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 53. “You shall eat the offspring of your womb, the flesh of your sons and your daughters the Lord your God gave you, in the distress and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 54. The tender and very refined man among you will turn a grudging eye toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, Deuteronomy 28, verse 55. so as not to give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in your siege and desperate straits in which your enemies shall distress you in all your cities. Deuteronomy 28, verse 56. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will turn a grudging eye toward the husband in her bosom, and upon her son and daughter, Deuteronomy 28, verse 57. and toward her placenta which came out from between her thighs and her child whom she might bear; for she will eat these secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you in all your cities. Deuteronomy 28, verse 58. “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law written in this book, to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, Deuteronomy 28, verse 59. then the Lord will bring upon you and your seed extraordinary plagues—great and marvelous plagues—and evil and chronic diseases. Deuteronomy 28, verse 60. Moreover He will bring back on you all the evil pain of Egypt of which you were in dread, and they shall cling to you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 61. Also every sickness and every plague not written in this book of the law will the Lord bring upon you, until He destroys you. Deuteronomy 28, verse 62. You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 28, verse 63. “Thus it shall be, in the manner the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be taken from off the land you go to inherit. Deuteronomy 28, verse 64. Then the Lord your God will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve different gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers knew. Deuteronomy 28, verse 65. But even among those nations He shall give you no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Deuteronomy 28, verse 66. Your Life shall hang before your eyes; and you shall fear day and night, and you will not believe in your Life. Deuteronomy 28, verse 67. In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight your eyes see. Deuteronomy 28, verse 68. Then the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ There you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female servants, but no one will buy you.” Deuteronomy 28, verse 69. These are the words of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to establish with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.