Deuteronomy 28

All 68 verses in the Clear Bible Translation. Tap a verse to compare the KJV and read what it means.

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1. 1If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow every command I'm giving you today, the LORD your God will raise you up above every nation on earth.
2. 2All these blessings will chase you down and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of the LORD your God.
3. 3You'll be blessed in the city and blessed in the countryside.
4. 4Your children will be blessed, your crops will be blessed, and your livestock — both your herds and your flocks — will be blessed.
5. 5Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
6. 6You'll be blessed when you come home and blessed when you go out.
7. 7The LORD will strike down the enemies who attack you. They'll march against you from one direction but scatter and run from you in 7 different directions.
8. 8The LORD will command his blessing on your barns and on everything you do. He will bless you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
9. 9The LORD will establish you as his holy people, just as he promised you — if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.
10. 10Every nation on earth will see that you belong to the LORD, and they will fear you.
11. 11The LORD will give you overwhelming abundance — in your children, in your livestock, and in your crops — in the land the LORD swore to your ancestors he would give you.
12. 12The LORD will open up the heavens, his rich storehouse, to send rain on your land at just the right time and to bless everything you do. You'll lend to many nations but never need to borrow from anyone.
13. 13The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. You'll always be on top, never on the bottom — if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I'm giving you today and carefully follow them.
14. 14Don't turn aside from anything I command you today, not to the right or to the left, and don't chase after other gods to worship them.
15. 15But if you refuse to listen to the LORD your God and don't carefully follow all his commandments and statutes that I'm giving you today, then all these curses will come crashing down on you and overtake you.
16. 16You'll be cursed in the city and cursed in the countryside.
17. 17Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
18. 18Your children will be cursed, your crops will be cursed, and your livestock — both your herds and your flocks — will be cursed.
19. 19You'll be cursed when you come home and cursed when you go out.
20. 20The LORD will send curses, confusion, and frustration on everything you try to do, until you are destroyed and quickly wiped out — because of the evil things you've done in abandoning him.
21. 21The LORD will make plague cling to you until it has consumed you from the land you are entering to possess.
22. 22The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, scorching heat, drought, blight, and mildew. These disasters will hunt you down until you are destroyed.
23. 23The heaven above your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you will be iron.
24. 24The LORD will turn the rain of your land into powder and dust; it will come down on you from heaven until you are destroyed.
25. 25The LORD will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will go out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven directions, and you will be scattered among all the kingdoms of the earth.
26. 26Your dead bodies will be food for the birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to scare them away.
27. 27The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, scurvy, and an itch that can never be healed.
28. 28The LORD will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.
29. 29You'll stumble around at noon like a blind person groping in the dark. Nothing you do will succeed. You'll be constantly oppressed and robbed, and no one will save you.
30. 30You'll get engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You'll build a house but never live in it. You'll plant a vineyard but never enjoy its fruit.
31. 31Your ox will be slaughtered right in front of you, but you won't eat any of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you and never returned. Your sheep will be handed over to your enemies, and no one will help you.
32. 32Your sons and daughters will be given away to a foreign people. You'll watch for them all day long, your eyes aching with longing, but you'll be powerless to do anything about it.
33. 33A nation you've never even heard of will devour your crops and everything you've worked for. You'll be nothing but oppressed and crushed, day after day.
34. 34The things you see with your own eyes will drive you insane.
35. 35The LORD will strike you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and legs — from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
36. 36The LORD will send you and the king you've placed over yourselves to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you'll worship other gods made of wood and stone.
37. 37You'll become an object of horror, a cautionary tale, and a joke among every nation where the LORD sends you.
38. 38You'll plant plenty of seed in your fields but harvest almost nothing, because locusts will devour it.
39. 39You'll plant vineyards and tend them carefully, but you won't drink the wine or pick the grapes, because worms will eat them.
40. 40You'll have olive trees throughout your land, but you won't have oil to use, because the olives will fall off before they ripen.
41. 41You'll have sons and daughters, but you won't get to keep them — they'll be taken away into captivity.
42. 42Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
43. 43The foreigners living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower.
44. 44They'll lend to you, but you won't lend to them. They'll be the head, and you'll be the tail.
45. 45All these curses will come after you, chase you down, and overtake you until you are destroyed — because you refused to listen to the LORD your God and follow the commandments and statutes he gave you.
46. 46These curses will be a sign and a warning to you and your descendants forever.
47. 47Because you didn't serve the LORD your God with joy and a grateful heart when you had an abundance of everything,
48. 48you'll end up serving the enemies the LORD sends against you — in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and desperate need. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
49. 49The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as swift as an eagle in flight — a nation whose language you will not understand.
50. 50They'll be a fierce-looking people who show no respect for the elderly and no mercy to the young.
51. 51He will devour the offspring of your cattle and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. He will not leave you any grain, wine, or oil, nor the calves of your herds or the flocks of your sheep, until he has destroyed you.
52. 52He will lay siege to all your gates until your high, fortified walls that you trusted in come down. He will besiege you at every gate throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.
53. 53During the siege, when your enemies have you in such desperate straits, you'll be driven to eat your own children — the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God gave you.
54. 54Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will turn cruel toward his own brother, toward the wife he loves, and toward his surviving children.
55. 55He won't share with any of them the flesh of his children that he's eating, because he has nothing else left — so terrible will be the siege your enemy imposes on all your towns.
56. 56Even the most gentle and delicate woman among you — so refined she wouldn't dare let the sole of her foot touch the ground — will turn cruel toward the husband she loves, toward her own son, and toward her own daughter.
57. 57She'll secretly eat her newborn child and the afterbirth, because she has absolutely nothing else. That's how desperate the siege will be when your enemy surrounds your towns.
58. 58If you will not carefully obey all the words of this law that are written in this book, so that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD YOUR GOD —
59. 59then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants: severe and lingering diseases, terrible and lasting sicknesses.
60. 60He'll bring back on you every disease from Egypt that you dreaded, and they'll cling to you and not let go.
61. 61On top of that, the LORD will bring every kind of sickness and plague not even written in this book of the law, until you are destroyed.
62. 62You will be left few in number, though you once were as numerous as the stars of heaven — because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
63. 63Just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing. You will be plucked from the land you are entering to possess.
64. 64The LORD will scatter you among every nation, from one end of the earth to the other. There you'll worship other gods made of wood and stone — gods neither you nor your ancestors ever knew.
65. 65Among those nations you'll find no peace, and your feet will find no place to rest. The LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes tired from weeping, and a soul heavy with despair.
66. 66Your life will hang by a thread. You'll live in terror day and night, never sure you'll survive.
67. 67In the morning you'll say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening you'll say, "If only it were morning!" — because of the terror gripping your heart and the horrors you'll witness with your own eyes.
68. 68The LORD will send you back to Egypt in ships, by a route I told you that you would never see again. There you'll try to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves — both men and women — but no one will even want to buy you.