Deuteronomy 28:56-66

56 And the most gentle and caring woman among you, a woman who wouldn't step on a wildflower, will turn hard, her eye evil, against her cherished husband, against her son, against her daughter,
57 against even the afterbirth of her newborn infants; she plans to eat them in secret - she does eat them! - because she has lost everything, even her humanity, in the suffering of the siege that your enemy mounts against your fortified towns.
58 If you don't diligently keep all the words of this Revelation written in this book, living in holy awe before This Name glorious and terrible, God, your God,
59 then God will pound you with catastrophes, you and your children, huge interminable catastrophes, hideous interminable illnesses.
60 He'll bring back and stick you with every old Egyptian malady that once terrorized you.
61 And yes, every disease and catastrophe imaginable - things not even written in the Book of this Revelation - God will bring on you until you're destroyed.
62 Because you didn't listen obediently to the Voice of God, your God, you'll be left with a few pitiful stragglers in place of the dazzling stars-in-the-heavens multitude you had become.
63 And this is how things will end up: Just as God once enjoyed you, took pleasure in making life good for you, giving you many children, so God will enjoy getting rid of you, clearing you off the Earth. He'll weed you out of the very soil that you are entering in to possess.
64 He'll scatter you to the four winds, from one end of the Earth to the other. You'll worship all kinds of other gods, gods neither you nor your parents ever heard of, wood and stone no-gods.
65 But you won't find a home there, you'll not be able to settle down. God will give you a restless heart, longing eyes, a homesick soul.
66 You will live in constant jeopardy, terrified of every shadow, never knowing what you'll meet around the next corner.

Deuteronomy 28:56-66 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.

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.