Blessings for Obedience
1 “And qif you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you rhigh above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and sovertake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and tblessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be uthe fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your vkneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be wwhen you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 “The Lord xwill cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 The Lord ywill command the blessing on you in your barns and zin all that you undertake. aAnd he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9 bThe Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10 And call the peoples of the earth shall see that you are dcalled by the name of the Lord, and they shall be eafraid of you. 11 And fthe Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in uthe fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, gto give the rain to your land in its season and hto bless all the work of your hands. And iyou shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 And the Lord will make you jthe head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, 14 kand if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Curses for Disobedience
15 “But lif you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and movertake you. 16 Cursed shall you be nin the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. 17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 19 Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20 “The Lord owill send on you curses, confusion, and pfrustration in all that you undertake to do, quntil you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. 21 The Lord will make rthe pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 22 sThe Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought1 and with tblight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And uthe heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
25 v“The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you wshall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And xyour dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and ythere shall be no one to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will strike you zwith the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and ascabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will strike you with bmadness and blindness and confusion of mind, 29 and you shall cgrope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways.2 And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you. 30 dYou shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. eYou shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. fYou shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat any of it. Your donkey shall be seized before your face, but shall not be restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies, but there shall be no one to help you. 32 gYour sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, hbut you shall be helpless. 33 A nation that you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your ground and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, 34 so that you are driven mad iby the sights that your eyes see. 35 The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs jwith grievous boils of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
36 “The Lord will kbring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you lnor your fathers have known. And mthere you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. 37 And you shall become na horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away. 38 oYou shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for pthe locust shall consume it. 39 qYou shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you rshall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. 41 You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for sthey shall go into captivity. 42 pThe cricket3 shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground. 43 tThe sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 uHe shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. tHe shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
45 v“All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. 46 They shall be wa sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. 47 xBecause you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he ywill put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49 zThe Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, aswooping down like the eagle, a nation bwhose language you do not understand, 50 a hard-faced nation cwho shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. 51 It shall deat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.
52 “They shall ebesiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. 53 And fyou shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, gin the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. 54 The man who is the most tender and refined among you will hbegrudge food to his brother, to ithe wife he embraces,4 and to the last of the children whom he has left, 55 so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, jin the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. 56 kThe most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces,5 to her son and to her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, jin the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.
58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, lthe Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. 60 And he will bring upon you again all mthe diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. 62 Whereas nyou were as numerous oas the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 63 And as the Lord ptook delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will qtake delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
64 “And the Lord rwill scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and sthere you shall serve other gods tof wood and stone, uwhich neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And vamong these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but wthe Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and xa languishing soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. 67 yIn the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and zthe sights that your eyes shall see. 68 And the Lord awill bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that byou should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”
The Covenant Renewed in Moab
1 6 These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel cin the land of Moab, besides dthe covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.
2 7 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: e“You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 3 the great ftrials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 But to this day gthe Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. 5 hI have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. 6 iYou have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. 7 And when you came to this place, jSihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, but we defeated them. 8 We took their land and kgave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites. 9 lTherefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper8 in all that you do.
10 “You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God: the heads of your tribes,9 your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, 11 your little ones, your wives, and the msojourner who is in your camp, from nthe one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, 12 so that you may enter into the osworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, 13 that he may pestablish you today as his people, and that qhe may be your God, as he promised you, and ras he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 14 It is not with you alone sthat I am making this sworn covenant, 15 but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, tand with whoever is not here with us today.
16 “You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. 17 And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. 18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you ua root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, 19 one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. 20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather vthe anger of the Lord and whis jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord xwill blot out his name from under heaven. 21 And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. 22 And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, ywill say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick— 23 the whole land burned out with brimstone and zsalt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, aan overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, bAdmah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— 24 all the nations cwill say, d‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ 25 Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, 26 and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. 27 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, ebringing upon it all the curses written in this book, 28 and the Lord fuprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and gcast them into another land, as they are this day.’
29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
31 “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,
“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’
33 For John the Baptist has come peating no bread and qdrinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come reating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, sa friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35 Yet twisdom is justified by all her children.”
A Sinful Woman Forgiven
36 uOne of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. 37 vAnd behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wwiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If xthis man were ya prophet, he zwould have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” 40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”
41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred adenarii, and the other fifty. 42 bWhen they could not pay, he ccancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; dyou gave me no water for my feet, but eshe has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 fYou gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to gkiss my feet. 46 hYou did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, iwhich are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, j“Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among1 themselves, k“Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, l“Your faith has saved you; mgo in peace.”
