Blessings for Obedience

26 “You shall not make ^(A)idols for yourselves or erect an ^(B)image or ^(C)pillar, and you shall not set up a ^(D)figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. ^2 (E)You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

^3 (F)“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, ⁴ then ^(G)I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. ^5 (H)Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And ^(I)you shall eat your bread to the full and ^(J)dwell in your land securely. ^6 (K)I will give peace in the land, and ^(L)you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And ^(M)I will remove harmful beasts from the land, ^(N)and the sword shall not go through your land. ⁷ You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. ^8 (O)Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. ^9 (P)I will turn to you and ^(Q)make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. ¹⁰ You shall eat ^(R)old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. ^11 (S)I will make my dwelling^[a] among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. ^12 (T)And I ^(U)will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. ^13 (V)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. ^(W)And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Punishment for Disobedience

^14 (X)“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, ¹⁵ if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but ^(Y)break my covenant, ¹⁶ then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with ^(Z)wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And ^(AA)you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷ I will ^(AB)set my face against you, and ^(AC)you shall be struck down before your enemies. ^(AD)Those who hate you shall rule over you, and ^(AE)you shall flee when none pursues you. ¹⁸ And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again ^(AF)sevenfold for your sins, ¹⁹ and I will break ^(AG)the pride of your power, and I ^(AH)will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. ²⁰ And ^(AI)your strength shall be spent in vain, for ^(AJ)your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

^21 (AK)“Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. ²² And ^(AL)I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that ^(AM)your roads shall be deserted.

²³ “And ^(AN)if by this discipline you are not turned to me ^(AO)but walk contrary to me, ^24 (AP)then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. ²⁵ And ^(AQ)I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, ^(AR)I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ^26 (AS)When I break your supply^[b] of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and ^(AT)you shall eat and not be satisfied.

²⁷ “But ^(AU)if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you ^(AV)in fury, and I myself will discipline you ^(AW)sevenfold for your sins. ^29 (AX)You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ And ^(AY)I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and ^(AZ)cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. ³¹ And I will ^(BA)lay your cities waste and will ^(BB)make your sanctuaries desolate, and ^(BC)I will not smell your pleasing aromas. ³² And ^(BD)I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be ^(BE)appalled at it. ³³ And ^(BF)I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

^34 (BG)“Then the land shall enjoy^[c] its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. ³⁶ And as for those of you who are left, ^(BH)I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The ^(BI)sound of a ^(BJ)driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. ³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And ^(BK)you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹ And those of you who are left shall ^(BL)rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

⁴⁰ “But if ^(BM)they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they ^(BN)committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, ⁴¹ so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their ^(BO)uncircumcised heart is ^(BP)humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will ^(BQ)remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will ^(BR)remember the land. ⁴³ But ^(BS)the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, ^(BT)I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and ^(BU)break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. ⁴⁵ But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, ^(BV)whom I brought out of the land of Egypt ^(BW)in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

^46 (BX)These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses ^(BY)on Mount Sinai.

⁸ “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may ^(A)be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, ⁹ and ^(B)that you may live long in the land ^(C)that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, ^(D)a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it,^[a] like a garden of vegetables. ^11 (E)But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, ¹² a land that the Lord your God cares for. ^(F)The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³ “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, ^(G)to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, ^14 (H)he^[b] will give the rain for your land in its season, ^(I)the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. ^15 (J)And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and ^(K)you shall eat and be full. ¹⁶ Take care ^(L)lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and ^(M)serve other gods and worship them; ¹⁷ then ^(N)the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he ^(O)will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and ^(P)you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

^18 (Q)“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and ^(R)you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹ You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ^20 (S)You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ^21 (T)that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, ^(U)as long as the heavens are above the earth. ²² For if ^(V)you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and ^(W)holding fast to him, ²³ then the Lord ^(X)will drive out all these nations before you, and you will ^(Y)dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. ^24 (Z)Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be ^(AA)from the wilderness to^[c] the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. ^25 (AB)No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay ^(AC)the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, ^(AD)as he promised you.

^26 (AE)“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ^27 (AF)the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, ²⁸ and ^(AG)the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, ^(AH)to go after other gods that you have not known. ²⁹ And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set ^(AI)the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰ Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the ^(AJ)Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside ^(AK)the oak^[d] of Moreh? ³¹ For you are ^(AL)to cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, ³² you shall be careful ^(AM)to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

The Altar on Mount Ebal

27 Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep the whole commandment that I command you today. ² And on the day ^(A)you cross over the Jordan to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster. ^3 (B)And you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you cross over to enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, ^(C)a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you. ⁴ And when you have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, concerning which I command you today, ^(D)on Mount Ebal, and you shall plaster them with plaster. ⁵ And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. ^(E)You shall wield no iron tool on them; ⁶ you shall build an altar to the Lord your God of uncut^[a] stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God, ⁷ and you shall sacrifice peace offerings and ^(F)shall eat there, and you ^(G)shall rejoice before the Lord your God. ⁸ And ^(H)you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.”

Curses from Mount Ebal

⁹ Then Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, “Keep silence and hear, O Israel: ^(I)this day you have become the people of the Lord your God. ¹⁰ You shall therefore obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today.”

¹¹ That day Moses charged the people, saying, ¹² “When you have crossed over the Jordan, ^(J)these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. ¹³ And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. ¹⁴ And ^(K)the Levites shall declare to all the men of Israel in a loud voice:

^15 (L)“‘Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ ^(M)And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

^16 (N)“‘Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^17 (O)“‘Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^18 (P)“‘Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^19 (Q)“‘Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^20 (R)“‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his father's wife, because he has ^(S)uncovered his father's nakedness.’^[b] And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^21 (T)“‘Cursed be anyone who lies with any kind of animal.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^22 (U)“‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his sister, whether the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^23 (V)“‘Cursed be anyone who lies with his mother-in-law.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^24 (W)“‘Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^25 (X)“‘Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

^26 (Y)“‘Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’