Dabarym (Deuteronomy) — 28
Barakah for Obedience
1 “If you fully obey 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH and carefully keep all the commandments of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH that I am giving you today, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH will set you high above all the nations of the world.
2 You will experience all these Barakah if you obey 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH:
3 Your towns and your fields will be Baraked.
4 Your children and your crops will be Baraked, offspring of your herds and flocks will be Baraked.
5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be Baraked.
6 Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be Baraked.
7 “For 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven ways!
8 “And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will guarantee a Barakah on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH will barak you in the land He will give you.
9 “If you obey the commandments of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH and walk in His ways, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will establish you as HIS Qadash people as 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH swore He would do.
10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH, and they will stand in awe of you.
11 “For 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, for you will be Barakah with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops.
12 And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will send rain at the proper time from HIS rich treasury in the Shamaym and HE will barak all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them.
13 If you listen to these commandments of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom.
14 You must not turn away from any of the commandments I am giving you today, nor follow after idols and worship them.
Curses for Disobedience
15 “But if you refuse to listen to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH and do not obey all the commandments and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:
16 Your towns and your fields will be cursed.
17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be cursed.
18 Your children and your crops will be cursed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be cursed.
19 Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be cursed.
20 “For 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning your ALUAH.
21 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy.
22 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die.
23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the Arath beneath will be as hard as iron.
24 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.
25 “And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven ways! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the Arath.
26 Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.
27 “For 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will afflict you with the boils of Mitzraym and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.
28 And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.
29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.
30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit.
31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you.
32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you will not be able to help them.
33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment.
34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you.
35 And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.
36 “Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship idols of wood and stone!
37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH sends you.
38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops.
39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines.
40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens.
41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity.
42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.
43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you will become weaker and weaker.
44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!
45 “If you refuse to listen to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH and you don't obey the commandments and decrees 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed.
46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever.
47 If you do not serve 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received,
48 you will serve your enemies whom 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until He has destroyed you.
49 “And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the Arath, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand,
50 A fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death.
52 They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land, the walls you trusted to protect you are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH has given you.
53 “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH has given you.
54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children.
55 He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring, the flesh of one of his own children, because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.
56 The most tender and delicate woman among you, so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot, she will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter.
57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.
58 “If you refuse to obey all the Dabar of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the Esteemed and awesome Name of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH,
59 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick.
60 He will afflict you with all the diseases of Mitzraym that you feared so much, and you will have no relief.
61 For 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed.
62 Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH your 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH.
63 “Just as 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply you, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy.
64 For 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the Arath to the other. There you will worship foreign idols that neither you nor your ancestors have known, idols made of wood and stone!
65 There among those nations you will find no Shalum or place to rest. And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair.
66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.
67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you.
68 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH will send you back to Mitzraym in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”