Deuteronomy 28:32-42

32 Your sons and daughters shall be given to another people, while you look on; you will strain your eyes looking for them all day but be powerless to do anything.
33 A people whom you do not know shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors; you shall be continually abused and crushed,
34 and driven mad by the sight that your eyes shall see.
35 The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36 The Lord will bring you, and the king whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone.
37 You shall become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you.
38 You shall carry much seed into the field but shall gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.
39 You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.
40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off.
41 You shall have sons and daughters, but they shall not remain yours, for they shall go into captivity.
42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground the cicada shall take over.

Deuteronomy 28:32-42 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.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.