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Deuteronomy 28:15-44
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15
Here's what will happen if you don't obediently listen to the Voice of God, your God, and diligently keep all the commandments and guidelines that I'm commanding you today. All these curses will come down hard on you:
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God's curse in the city, God's curse in the country;
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God's curse on your basket and bread bowl;
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God's curse on your children, the crops of your land, the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds, the lambs of your flocks.
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God's curse in your coming in, God's curse in your going out.
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God will send The Curse, The Confusion, The Contrariness down on everything you try to do until you've been destroyed and there's nothing left of you - all because of your evil pursuits that led you to abandon me.
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God will infect you with The Disease, wiping you right off the land that you're going in to possess.
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God will set consumption and fever and rash and seizures and dehydration and blight and jaundice on you. They'll hunt you down until they kill you.
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The sky over your head will become an iron roof, the ground under your feet, a slab of concrete.
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From out of the skies God will rain ash and dust down on you until you suffocate.
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God will defeat you by enemy attack. You'll come at your enemies on one road and run away on seven roads. All the kingdoms of Earth will see you as a horror.
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Carrion birds and animals will boldly feast on your dead body with no one to chase them away.
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God will hit you hard with the boils of Egypt, hemorrhoids, scabs, and an incurable itch.
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He'll make you go crazy and blind and senile.
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You'll grope around in the middle of the day like a blind person feeling his way through a lifetime of darkness; you'll never get to where you're going. Not a day will go by that you're not abused and robbed. And no one is going to help you.
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You'll get engaged to a woman and another man will take her for his mistress; you'll build a house and never live in it; you'll plant a garden and never eat so much as a carrot;
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you'll watch your ox get butchered and not get a single steak from it; your donkey will be stolen from in front of you and you'll never see it again; your sheep will be sent off to your enemies and no one will lift a hand to help you.
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Your sons and daughters will be shipped off to foreigners; you'll wear your eyes out looking vainly for them, helpless to do a thing.
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Your crops and everything you work for will be eaten and used by foreigners; you'll spend the rest of your lives abused and knocked around.
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What you see will drive you crazy.
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God will hit you with painful boils on your knees and legs and no healing or relief from head to foot.
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God will lead you and the king you set over you to a country neither you nor your ancestors have heard of; there you'll worship other gods, no-gods of wood and stone.
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Among all the peoples where God will take you, you'll be treated as a lesson or a proverb - a horror!
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You'll plant sacks and sacks of seed in the field but get almost nothing - the grasshoppers will devour it.
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You'll plant and hoe and prune vineyards but won't drink or put up any wine - the worms will devour them.
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You'll have groves of olive trees everywhere, but you'll have no oil to rub on your face or hands - the olives will have fallen off.
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You'll have sons and daughters but they won't be yours for long - they'll go off to captivity.
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Locusts will take over all your trees and crops.
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The foreigner who lives among you will climb the ladder, higher and higher, while you go deeper and deeper into the hole.
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He'll lend to you; you won't lend to him. He'll be the head; you'll be the tail.
Deuteronomy 28:15-44 Meaning and Commentary
INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 28
In this chapter Moses enlarges on the blessings and the curses which belong, the one to the doers, the other to the transgressors of the law; the blessings, De 28:1-14; the curses, some of which concern individual persons, others the whole nation and body of people, and that both under the former and present dispensations, and which had their fulfilment in their former captivities, and more especially in their present dispersion, De 28:15-68.
Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
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Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.