    You shall obey the LORD your God, each and every one of you.

    You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your
    strength and all your soul.

    And on top of that, you had better love your neighbour as much as you
    love yourself, too.

    For if you do not obey the LORD your God, and faithfully follow all his
    commands and laws that I am giving you today, all these curses will come
    to you and cling to you:

    You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. The grain you
    harvest and the bread you bake will be cursed. You will be cursed. You
    will have few children. Your land will have few crops. Your cattle will
    be cursed with few calves, and your flocks will have few lambs and kids.

    You will be cursed when you come and cursed when you go. Curses, panic,
    and frustration will be sent to you in everything you do, until you are
    destroyed and quickly disappear for the evil you will do by abandoning
    the LORD. One plague after another will be sent on you until you are
    wiped out of the land you have been promised. You will be stricken with
    disease, fever, and inflammation; heat waves, drought, scorching winds,
    and ruined crops. They will pursue you until you die. The sky above will
    look like bronze, and the ground below will be as hard as iron. Dust
    storms and sandstorms will be sent on you from the sky until you are
    destroyed.

    Your enemies will be permitted to defeat you. You will attack them from
    one direction but run away from them in seven directions. You will
    become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms in the world. Your dead
    bodies will be food for all the birds and wild animals. There will be no
    one to scare them away.

    You will be stricken with the same boils that plagued the Egyptians. You
    will be stricken with hemorrhoids, sores, and itching that will not go
    away. You will be stricken with madness, blindness, and panic. You will
    grope in broad daylight as blind people grope in their blindness. You
    will not be successful in anything you do.

    As long as you live, you will be oppressed and robbed with no one to
    rescue you. You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will have
    sex with her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You
    will plant a vineyard, but you will not enjoy the grapes. Your ox will
    be butchered as you watch, but you will not eat any of its meat. You
    will watch as your donkey is stolen from you, but you will never get it
    back. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue
    it.

    You will watch with your own eyes as your sons and daughters are given
    to another nation. You will strain your eyes looking for them all day
    long, but there will be nothing you can do.

    People you never knew will eat what your land and your hard work have
    produced. As long as you live, you will know nothing but oppression and
    abuse. The things you see will drive you mad. Your knees and legs will
    be afflicted with severe boils that can't be cured. The boils will cover
    your whole body from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

    You and your leaders will be carried away to a nation that you and your
    ancestors never knew. There you will worship gods made of wood and
    stone. You will become a thing of horror. All the nations where you will
    be sent will make an example of you and ridicule you.

    You will plant many crops in your fields, but harvest little because
    locusts will destroy your crops. You will plant vineyards and take care
    of them, but you will not drink any wine or gather any grapes, because
    worms will eat them. You will have olive trees everywhere in your
    country but no olive oil to rub on your skin, because the olives will
    fall off the trees.

    You will have sons and daughters, but you will not be able to keep them
    because they will be taken as prisoners of war. Crickets will swarm all
    over your trees and the crops in your fields. The standard of living for
    the foreigners who live among you will rise higher and higher, while
    your standard of living will sink lower and lower. They will be able to
    make loans to you, but you will not be able to make loans to them. They
    will be the head, and you will be the tail.

    All these curses will come to you. They will pursue you and stay close
    to you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your
    God or follow his commands and laws, which I am giving you today. These
    curses will be a sign and an exceptional thing, to warn you and your
    descendants forever: that you did not serve the LORD your God with a
    joyful and happy heart when you had so much. So you will serve your
    enemies, whom the LORD will send against you. You will serve them even
    though you are already hungry, thirsty, naked, and in need of just about
    everything.

    A heavy burden of hard work will be put on you until you are destroyed.
    A nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, will be brought
    against you. The nation will swoop down on you like an eagle. It will be
    a nation whose language you will not understand. Its people will be
    fierce-looking. They will show no respect for the old and no pity for
    the young. They will eat the offspring of your animals and the crops
    from your fields until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain,
    no wine, no olive oil, no calves from your herds, and no lambs or kids
    from your flocks. They will continue to do this until they have
    completely ruined you.

    They will blockade all your cities until the high, fortified walls in
    which you trust come down everywhere in your land. They will blockade
    all the cities everywhere in the land that the LORD your God promised
    you.

    Because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer during the
    blockade, you will eat the flesh of your own children - the sons and
    daughters whom the LORD your God has given you. Even the most tender and
    sensitive man among you will become stingy toward his brother, the wife
    he loves, and the children he still has left. He will give none of them
    any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all that
    he has left, because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer
    during the blockade of all your cities. The most tender and sensitive
    woman among you - so sensitive and tender that she would not even step
    on an ant - will become stingy toward the husband she loves or toward
    her own son or daughter. She will not share with them the afterbirth
    from her body and the children to whom she gives birth. She will
    secretly eat them out of dire necessity, because of the hardships your
    enemies will make you suffer during the blockade of your cities.

    You might not faithfully obey every word of the teachings that I am
    telling you. You might not fear this glorious and awe-inspiring name:
    the LORD your God. If so, you and your descendants will be stricken with
    unimaginable plagues. They will be terrible and continuing plagues and
    severe and lingering diseases. All the diseases of Egypt that you
    dreaded will be brought on you, and they will stick to you like glue:
    and every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned here as well. They
    will continue until you are dead.

    At one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky. But only a few
    of you will be left, because you did not obey the LORD your God. At one
    time the LORD was more than glad to make you prosperous and numerous:
    now the LORD will be more than glad to destroy you and wipe you out.

    You will be torn out of the land you have been promised. Then you will
    be scattered among all the people of the world, from one end of the
    earth to the other. There you will serve gods made of wood and stone
    that neither you nor your ancestors ever knew. Among those nations you
    will find no peace, no place to call your own. You will have an
    unsettled mind, failing eyesight, and despair.

    Your life will always be hanging by a thread. You will live in terror
    day and night. You will never feel sure of your life. In the morning you
    will say, If only it were evening! And in the evening you will say, If
    only it were morning! You will talk this way because of the things that
    will terrify you and because of the things you will see. You will be
    brought back to Egypt in ships on a journey that I said you would never
    take again. There you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your
    enemies, but no one will even buy you as a slave.