Context No. 3439 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Context · Reflection

Deuteronomy 28:45-60: in context

45All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. 46They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever. 47Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; 48therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, 50a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young. 51They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. 52They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. 53You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. 54The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, 55so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. 56The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, 57toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. 58If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD your God, 59then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. 60He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you.