Deuteronomy 28:12-22

12 ADONAI will open for you his good treasure, the sky, to give your land its rain at the right seasons and to bless everything you undertake. You will lend to many nations and not borrow;

13 ADONAI will make you the head and not the tail; and you will be only above, never below - if you will listen to, observe and obey the mitzvot of ADONAI your God

14 and not turn away from any of the words I am ordering you today, neither to the right nor to the left, to follow after other gods and serve them.

15 "But if you refuse to pay attention to what ADONAI your God says, and do not observe and obey all his mitzvot and regulations which I am giving you today, then all the following curses will be yours in abundance:

16 "A curse on you in the city, and a curse on you in the countryside.

17 "A curse on your grain-basket and kneading-bowl.

18 "A curse on the fruit of your body, the fruit of your land and the young of your cattle and flocks.

19 "A curse on you when you come in, and a curse on you when you go out.

20 "ADONAI will send on you curses, disasters and frustration in everything you set out to do, until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of your evil actions in abandoning me.

21 "ADONAI will bring on you a plague that will stay with you until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.

22 ADONAI will strike you down with wasting diseases, fever, inflammation, fiery heat, drought, blasting winds and mildew; and they will pursue you until you perish.

Deuteronomy 28:12-22 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.