Blessings for Obedience
28 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:
3 Your towns and your fields
will be blessed.
4 Your children and your crops
will be blessed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
will be blessed.
5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
will be blessed.
6 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
you will be blessed.
7 “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!
8 “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
9 “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.
11 “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.
Curses for Disobedience
15 “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:
16 Your towns and your fields
will be cursed.
17 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
will be cursed.
18 Your children and your crops
will be cursed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
will be cursed.
19 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
you will be cursed.
20 “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. 21 The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die. 23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. 24 The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed. 25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away. 27 “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. 29 You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you. 30 “You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you. 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them. 33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you. 35 The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot. 36 “The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone! 37 You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you. 38 “You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines. 40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity. 42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops. 43 “The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker. 44 They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail! 45 “If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. 46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever. 47 If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.
49 “The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young. 51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death. 52 They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you. 53 “The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you. 54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children. 55 He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 56 The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter. 57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 58 “If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick. 60 He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief. 61 The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed. 62 Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God. 63 “Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy. 64 For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone! 65 There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you. 68 Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”
従う者への祝福
28 今日、私が与えるこの主の律法をすべて守り行うなら、あなたの神、主は、あなたを世界中で最もすぐれた民とし、 2-6 次のような祝福をお与えになります。あなたは町の中でも外でも祝福され、多くの子ども、作物、羊や牛、くだものやパンに恵まれます。戦いや仕事に出て行くときも帰って来るときも祝福されます。7 主はあなたの敵を撃退し、彼らが束になってかかってきても、くもの子を散らすように追い散らします。 8 主は約束の地において、良い収穫をあげ、丈夫な牛が生まれ、あなたのすべての手のわざが祝福されるように守ってくださいます。 9 あなたの神、主に従い、主の道に歩むなら、あなたは聖なる民としていただけます。 10 世界中の国々は、あなたが主のものであることを知って恐れるでしょう。11 主は約束どおり、多くの子どもたちを与え、家畜や作物の実りに至るまで祝福してくださいます。 12 天の雨の倉を開き、豊かな収穫をもたらす雨を季節ごとに降らせてくださるのです。すべてが順調にいくのであなたは栄え、多くの国に貸し与えるようにはなっても、借りることはありません。 13 今日、私が与えるあなたの神、主の律法に従い、それを守り行うなら、どの国より上に立つ国にされるでしょう。 14 ただし、それはみな、私が与える律法を忠実に守るかどうかにかかっています。だから、絶対にほかの神々に仕えてはいけません。
背く者へののろい
15-19 もし、主の言われることを聞かず、律法に従わないなら、あなたは必ずのろわれます。町の中でも外でものろわれ、くだものやパンに不自由し、子どもを授からず、作物の実りも乏しく、牛や羊まで減っていきます。出て行くときも帰って来るときも、よくないことばかり起こります。
20 主が自らのろいをお下しになるからです。混乱に陥り、なすこと全部が失敗して、最後には滅びます。主を捨てて悪を行った結果です。 21 これから占領する地で、主は疫病をはやらせ、難なくあなたを滅ぼしてしまわれます。 22 あなたは、結核、熱病、伝染病、戦争、さらに黒穂病によって打たれます。23 また、天は青銅のように堅く閉じて雨を降らせず、地は鉄のように堅くしまり、作物を実らせません。 24 日照りで国土が干上がり、猛烈な砂嵐が荒れ狂って、生き残る者は一人もありません。25 勢い込んで戦いに出ても、主に見離されているので、たちまち総くずれし、みじめに敗走することになります。そうなったら、地上のすべての国々にとっていい見せしめになるでしょう。 26 戦死者の死体が鳥や野獣のえじきとなっても、追い払う者さえいません。27 また主は、エジプトの皮膚病、できもの、腫瘍、壊血病、疥癬によってあなたを打ち、いやされることはありません。 28 恐怖で気が転倒し、何が何だかわからなくなり、パニック状態に陥ります。 29 盲人が暗闇で手探りするように、真昼の明るい所でも手探りしなければ歩けません。何をしてもうまくいかず、痛めつけられ、略奪されるばかりなのに、だれも助けてくれません。30 婚約者を奪われ、自分が建てた家には他人が住み、自分が育てたぶどう園の実を他人が食べるようになります。 31 自分の牛が目の前で殺されても、その肉の一片さえもらえません。目の前でろばが連れ去られても、黙って見ているだけで、取り返すことはできません。羊がみな敵に奪われても、だれも守ってくれません。 32 目の前で、息子や娘が奴隷に売られます。いくらかわいそうだと思っても、助けることができません。 33 名前さえ聞いたこともない民が、あなたが汗水流して育てた作物を食べ、あなたを痛めつけます。 34 見ることすべて悲しいことばかりで、心痛のあまり気がおかしくなります。 35 さらに主は、あなたをつま先から頭のてっぺんまで、できものだらけにされるでしょう。36 主は、あなたも王も国外追放にし、先祖のだれも知らなかった地へ追いやります。そこでは、木や石の神々を拝むしかありません。 37 こうして主に追い払われ、国々の恐怖、物笑いの種とされるのです。38 いくら種をまいても、いなごが食べてしまうので、収穫はわずかです。 39 ぶどう園を作り、せっせと手入れしても、虫に食い荒らされ、実を食べることもぶどう酒を飲むこともできません。 40 オリーブの木はどこにでもありますが、実が熟さないうちに落ちてしまうので、体に塗るほどのオリーブ油さえ採れません。 41 息子や娘はあっという間に連れ去られ、奴隷になります。 42 いなごは、木といわずぶどうといわず、あらゆるものを食い尽くします。 43 在留外国人がますます金持ちになっていく一方、あなたはますます貧しくなります。 44 物を貸すのは彼らで、あなたではありません。外国人のほうが恵まれ、あなたより優位に立ちます。45 あなたの神、主の言われることを聞かないと、これらののろいが次々に降りかかり、ついには滅ぼされます。どこにも逃げ場はありません。 46 これらのことはみな、あなたがたと子孫への警告なのです。 47-48 何の不自由もなく守っていただきながら、主をほめたたえようとしなければ、敵の奴隷にされます。敵に攻められ、飢え渇き、着る物もなく、あらゆる不自由を忍ばなければなりません。絶対にはずせない鉄のくびきをはめられ、最後には全滅するのです。49 主は遠く離れた国を立ち上がらせ、わしが飛びかかるように、あなたを襲わせます。その民は聞いたこともないことばを話し、 50 子どもだろうが老人だろうが容赦せず、どう猛で怒りに燃えています。 51 家畜も農産物も食い尽くされ、イスラエルでは麦も新しいぶどう酒もオリーブ油も底をつき、牛や羊もいなくなります。 52 町々は包囲され、頼みの高い城壁もついにくずれ落ちる日がきます。 53 激しい包囲攻撃の中で、わが子の肉さえ食べるほどの食糧難に見舞われます。 54 ふだんは優しい男でさえ、兄弟や妻はおろか子どもにまでむごい仕打ちをします。 55 町の中には食べる物が何もなくなり、飢えをしのぐためにわが子の肉を食べるばかりか、それを一人占めにしようとする者さえ出るでしょう。 56-57 足を地面に着けようともしないほどの淑女が、愛する夫や子どもたちと分け合おうともせずに、自分の産んだ子の肉を一人で食べてしまいます。敵の包囲攻撃のために町中が恐ろしいききんに陥り、死ぬほど苦しい目に会うからです。58-59 この書にあるすべての律法に従わず、主の輝かしく恐るべき御名をあがめようとしないなら、あなたも子孫たちも、絶えず疫病に苦しめられるでしょう。 60 あの恐ろしいエジプトの病気を、主がはやらせるのです。疫病は国中に広がります。 61 それだけではありません。主は、この書にも書いてない、ありとあらゆる疫病や災いを下し、ついにはあなたがたを滅亡させるでしょう。 62 星の数ほどいるあなたがたも、ほんの一握りが生き残るだけです。主の御声に聞き従わなければ、必ずこのとおりになります。63 かつて主があなたがたの幸せを願い、その数を増やすことを喜ばれたように、その時には、あなたがたを滅ぼすことを喜ばれるでしょう。一人もイスラエルには残れません。 64 世界の果てから果てまで追い散らされます。そこで、あなたも先祖も知らなかった、木や石でできた外国の神々を拝むのです。 65 一時も安心できず、不安と絶望に打ちのめされ、悲しみと恐れのあまり体はやせ衰えてしまうでしょう。 66 いつも死の危険にさらされ、昼も夜も、恐ろしさのあまり生きた心地もしません。明日のいのちさえわからないのです。 67 朝がくると、『夜になればいいのに』と言い、夜になれば、『朝がくればいいのに』とため息をつきます。そう言わずにはいられないほど、恐ろしいことばかり起こるのです。 68 もはや行くこともないだろうと言われたエジプトへ、主は船で人々を連れ帰ります。そこで自分を奴隷として敵に身売りしようとしても、買ってくれる者もいません。」