Atlas Biblica

    Deuteronomy · 68 verses

    Deuteronomy 28

    Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.

    The chapter

    What happens here

    Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.

    The final disaster is not death but an unsaleable return: Egypt awaits in ships, and the enemies will not buy the people offered to them.

    Blessing, with an excellent basketvv. 1–14

    The opening movement is lavishly domestic. Obedience brings blessing to city and country, womb and field, calves and lambs, basket and kneading bowl, entrance and exit alike. Enemies arrive in one direction and flee in seven; the people become the head rather than the tail, with rain from heaven and loans flowing outward. It is a remarkably comprehensive prosperity, right down to the kitchen equipment, so long as no one turns aside to other gods.

    The blessing turns inside outvv. 15–48

    Then the same household inventory is turned over. City and country, basket and kneading bowl, womb and field, entrance and exit: all receive their curses instead. The sky becomes bronze and the earth iron; rain arrives as dust. Defeat repeats the earlier arithmetic, but now the sevenfold flight belongs to the people addressed. From there the calamity becomes almost offensively particular: houses built but not inhabited, vineyards planted but not tasted, children carried away, locusts and worms taking the harvest, and a foreigner rising as the people sink. The cause is stated with unusual sharpness: abundance was present, but the LORD was not served with joy and gladness.

    The long way backvv. 49–68

    The final movement brings a nation from the ends of the earth, its language unknown and its appetite considerable. Cities are besieged, stores vanish, and the siege reaches the most terrible boundary in the passage: the people eat the flesh of their own children. After further plagues and the reduction of a people once as numerous as the stars, scattering replaces settlement. Even the hours become adversarial: morning longs for evening, evening for morning. At last the people are returned to Egypt in ships, a route forbidden to memory, and offered as slaves—only for the whole transaction to collapse at the last moment because no one will buy them.

    The text

    Read it

    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. Deut 28:1“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

    2. Deut 28:2And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the LORD your God:

    3. Deut 28:3You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

    4. Deut 28:4The fruit of your womb will be blessed, as well as the produce of your land and the offspring of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

    5. Deut 28:5Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.

    6. Deut 28:6You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

    7. Deut 28:7The LORD will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven.

    8. Deut 28:8The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; the LORD your God will bless you in the land He is giving you.

    9. Deut 28:9The LORD will establish you as His holy people, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways.

    10. Deut 28:10Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.

    11. Deut 28:11The LORD will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.

    12. Deut 28:12The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

    13. Deut 28:13The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am giving you today.

    14. Deut 28:14Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the words I command you today, and do not go after other gods to serve them.

    15. Deut 28:15If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

    16. Deut 28:16You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

    17. Deut 28:17Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.

    18. Deut 28:18The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

    19. Deut 28:19You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

    20. Deut 28:20The LORD will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him.

    21. Deut 28:21The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess.

    22. Deut 28:22The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.

    23. Deut 28:23The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.

    24. Deut 28:24The LORD will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

    25. Deut 28:25The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

    26. Deut 28:26Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

    27. Deut 28:27The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.

    28. Deut 28:28The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind,

    29. Deut 28:29and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.

    30. Deut 28:30You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit.

    31. Deut 28:31Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you.

    32. Deut 28:32Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.

    33. Deut 28:33A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.

    34. Deut 28:34You will be driven mad by the sights you see.

    35. Deut 28:35The LORD will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

    36. Deut 28:36The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

    37. Deut 28:37You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you.

    38. Deut 28:38You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it.

    39. Deut 28:39You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

    40. Deut 28:40You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off.

    41. Deut 28:41You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.

    42. Deut 28:42Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

    43. Deut 28:43The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower.

    44. Deut 28:44He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

    45. Deut 28:45All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you.

    46. Deut 28:46These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.

    47. Deut 28:47Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance,

    48. Deut 28:48you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

    49. Deut 28:49The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,

    50. Deut 28:50a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.

    51. Deut 28:51They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.

    52. Deut 28:52They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you.

    53. Deut 28:53Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.

    54. Deut 28:54The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,

    55. Deut 28:55refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates.

    56. Deut 28:56The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter

    57. Deut 28:57the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.

    58. Deut 28:58If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—

    59. Deut 28:59He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.

    60. Deut 28:60He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.

    61. Deut 28:61The LORD will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.

    62. Deut 28:62You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

    63. Deut 28:63Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

    64. Deut 28:64Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

    65. Deut 28:65Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

    66. Deut 28:66So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival.

    67. Deut 28:67In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.

    68. Deut 28:68The LORD will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 679 passages were voted onto 67 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 1Isaiah 1:19If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land.
    • 1Exodus 23:22But if you will listen carefully to his voice and do everything I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.
    • 1Leviticus 26:3–13If you follow My statutes and carefully keep My commandments,
    • 1Luke 11:28But He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
    • 1John 15:14You are My friends if you do what I command you.
    • 1Exodus 15:26saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
    • 72 Samuel 22:38–41I pursued my enemies and destroyed them; I did not turn back until they were consumed.
    • 1Psalms 91:14“Because he loves Me, I will deliver him; because he knows My name, I will protect him.
    • 7Leviticus 26:7–8You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you.
    • 12Deuteronomy 15:6When the LORD your God blesses you as He has promised, you will lend to many nations but borrow from none; you will rule over many nations but be ruled by none.
    • 1Deuteronomy 7:12–26If you listen to these ordinances and keep them carefully, then the LORD your God will keep His covenant and the loving devotion that He swore to your fathers.
    • 1Deuteronomy 15:5if only you obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commandments I am giving you today.
    • 1James 2:10–11Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
    • 1Romans 2:7To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life.
    • 7Psalms 89:23I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.
    • 13Deuteronomy 28:1“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

    Onward

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