Deuteronomy Chapter 28
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Many blessings are promised to observers of God’s commandments: and curses threatened to transgressors.
28:1. Now if thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, to do and keep all his commandments, which I command thee this day, the Lord thy God will make thee higher than all the nations that are on the earth.
28:2. And all these blessings shall come upon thee and overtake thee: yet so if thou hear his precepts.
All these blessings, etc.... In the Old Testament, God promised temporal blessings to the keepers of his law, heaven not being opened as yet; and that gross and sensual people being more moved with present and sensible things. But in the New Testament the goods that are promised us are spiritual and eternal; and temporal evils are turned into blessings.
28:3. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed in the field.
28:4. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the droves of thy herds, and the folds of thy sheep.
28:5. Blessed shall be thy barns and blessed thy stores.
28:6. Blessed shalt thou be coming in and going out.
28:7. The Lord shall cause thy enemies, that rise up against thee, to fall down before thy face: one way shall they come out against thee, and seven ways shall they flee before thee.
28:8. The Lord will send forth a blessing upon thy storehouses, and upon all the works of thy hands: and will bless thee in the land that thou shalt receive.
28:9. The Lord will raise thee up to be a holy people to himself, as he swore to thee: if thou keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways.
28:10. And all the people of the earth shall see that the name of the Lord is invocated upon thee, and they shall fear thee.
28:11. The Lord will make thee abound with all goods, with the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy cattle, with the fruit of thy land, which the Lord swore to thy fathers that he would give thee.
28:12. The Lord will open his excellent treasure, the heaven, that it may give rain in due season: and he will bless all the works of thy hands. And thou shalt lend to many nations, and shalt not borrow of any one.
28:13. And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail: and thou shalt be always above, and not beneath: yet so if thou wilt hear the commandments of the Lord thy God which I command thee this day, and keep and do them,
28:14. And turn not away from them neither to the right hand, nor to the left, nor follow strange gods, nor worship them.
28:15. But if thou wilt not hear the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep and to do all his commandments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day, all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.
All these curses, etc.... Thus God dealt with the transgressors of his law in the Old Testament: but now he often suffers sinners to prosper in this world, rewarding them for some little good they have done, and reserving their punishment for the other world.
28:16. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, cursed in the field.
28:17. Cursed shall be thy barn, and cursed thy stores.
28:18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, the herds of thy oxen, and the flocks of thy sheep.
28:19. Cursed shalt thou be coming in, and cursed going out.
28:20. The Lord shall send upon thee famine and hunger, and a rebuke upon all the works which thou shalt do: until he consume and destroy thee quickly, for thy most wicked inventions, by which thou hast forsaken me.
28:21. May the Lord set the pestilence upon thee, until he consume thee out of the land, which thou shalt go in to possess.
28:22. May the Lord afflict thee with miserable want, with the fever and with cold, with burning and with heat, and with corrupted air and with blasting, and pursue thee till thou perish.
28:23. Be the heaven, that is over thee, of brass: and the ground thou treadest on, of iron.
28:24. The Lord give thee dust for rain upon thy land, and let ashes come down from heaven upon thee, till thou be consumed.
28:25. The Lord make thee to fall down before thy enemies, one way mayst thou go out against them, and flee seven ways, and be scattered throughout all the kingdoms of the earth.
28:26. And be thy carcass meat for all the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, and be there none to drive them away.
28:27. The Lord strike thee with the ulcer of Egypt, and the part of thy body, by which the dung is cast out, with the scab and with the itch: so that thou canst not be healed.
28:28. The Lord strike thee with madness and blindness and fury of mind.
28:29. And mayst thou grope at midday as the blind is wont to grope in the dark, and not make straight thy ways. And mayst thou at all times suffer wrong, and be oppressed with violence, and mayst thou have no one to deliver thee.
28:30. Mayst thou take a wife, and another sleep with her. Mayst thou build a house, and not dwell therein. Mayest thou plant a vineyard and not gather the vintage thereof.
28:31. May thy ox be slain before thee, and thou not eat thereof. May thy ass be taken away in thy sight, and not restored to thee. May thy sheep be given to thy enemies, and may there be none to help thee.
28:32. May thy sons and thy daughters be given to another people, thy eyes looking on, and languishing at the sight of them all the day, and may there be no strength in thy hand.
28:33. May a people which thou knowest not, eat the fruits of thy land, and all thy labours: and mayst thou always suffer oppression, and be crushed at all times.
28:34. And be astonished at the terror of those things which thy eyes shall see:
28:35. May the Lord strike thee with a very sore ulcer in the knees and in the legs, and be thou incurable from the sole of the foot to the top of the head.
28:36. The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king, whom thou shalt have appointed over thee, into a nation which thou and thy fathers know not: and there thou shalt serve strange gods, wood and stone.
28:37. And thou shalt be lost, as a proverb and a byword to all people, among whom the Lord shall bring thee in.